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The Life That Now Is 



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HARMON HOWARD RICE 



Godliness is profitable unto all things, 
having promise of the life that now is, 
and of that which is to come. 

— Saint Paul, 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



Copyright. 1907, by 
EATON & MAINS. 




UlBf?ASYofCON!GRESS| 

NOV 16 J90f I 



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TO MY CHILDREN 
HAROLD AND GLADYS 



TOPICS TREATED 



CHAPTER PAGE 

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH 

I. Life i 

MAN'S NEED 

II. Success 7 

HIS GROWTH 

III. Foundation 14 

IV. Character , 19 

V. Development 23 

VI. Achievement 27 

VII. Sources of Power 31 

VIII. Effort ^6 

IX. Performance 40 

HIS HELPERS 

X. Singleness of Purpose 44 

XI. Faith 48 

XII. Industry 52 

XIII. Promptitude 56 

XIV. Honesty 59 

XV. Fidelity 6^ 

XVI. Rectitude 67 

XVII. Perseverance 71 

XVIII. Alertness 75 

XIX. Cheerfulness 77 

XX. Humility 80 

XXI. NONRESISTANCE 85 

XXII. Justice 88 

XXIII. Liberality 93 

XXIV. Kindness 97 

XXV. Harmony loi 



vi Topics Treated 

CHAPTER PAGE 

HIS OPPORTUNITIES 

XXVI. The Golden Rule 105 

XXVII. Authority 109 

XXVIII. Leadership 112 

XXIX. Criticism 116 

XXX. Responsibility ; 119 

XXXI. Wages 124 

HIS DANGERS 

XXXII. Pessimism 129 

XXXIII. Selfishness 133 

XXXIV. Personal Prejudice 137 

XXXV. Profanity 140 

XXXVI. Contention 144 

XXXVII. Heedlessness 147 

XXXVIII. Worrying 150 

XXXIX. Luxury 153 

HIS PROBLEMS 

XL. Associates 155 

XLL Opportunity 158 

XLII. Counting the Cost 163 

XLIII. Suitability 166 

XLIV. Publicity w 169 

XLV. Economy 173 

HIS PEACE 
XLVL Rest 176 



CHAPTER I 

Life 

I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly. 

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but 
to save them. 

In studying any one of the religions of antiquity 
the fact cannot escape notice that it represents a 
reaching upward of mankind, prompted by the 
aspiration of man's heart and soul toward higher 
things. Neither can one fail to observe the fu- 
tility of the effort while the mind of the investi- 
gator is enlightened only by human thoughts and 
inspired only by human ideals. 

George Washington was but a small boy when 
his father planted cabbage seed in a circle. A 
little later the tiny plants thrust their heads above 
the soil, preserving the geometrical form conceived 
by him who had sowed the seed. Then the fa- 
ther took the boy, who thereafter was never to 
doubt the existence of a Creator, showed him the 
circle of cabbage plants, and asked him why they 
grew in this regular form. The boy knew there 
was a man back of the planting, and it needed no 
logician to lead his intellect to the conception of 
God back of the universe. 

The assumption that there must have been a 



2 The Life That Now Is 

creative power, and that there must be a super- 
human force directing that multiplicity of activi- 
ties which, taken collectively, form the continuous 
life of the universe, resulted in the creation, in the 
mind of primitive man, of imaginary deities. 
These were in some instances represented by im- 
ages which were the work of men's hands, in 
which the essence of the represented deity was 
supposed to be embodied; while in other cases the 
planets, the winds, and the various individual 
forces of nature were deified and to them were 
ascribed volitional powers to control the affairs 
and destinies of mankind. 

As the stream cannot be higher than its source, 
so humanly created deities cannot be above their 
creators except in the power which they may be 
supposed to exercise, this conception of power 
arising from the observation that things are done 
which surpass the powers of man. It therefore 
came about that to such deities were ascribed love, 
anger, lust, avarice, revenge, and every passion of 
which the mind of man is itself capable. 

As it was unreasonable to suppose that a super- 
human being could entertain such various moods 
toward the creatures dependent upon it, a multi- 
plicity of deities came to be devised to each of 
which some ruling passion, good or evil, might be 
attributed, or each of which might be endowed 



Life 3 

with some great power for blessing or cursing the 
earth and its inhabitants. The superstition and 
fetichism which must necessarily follow in the train 
of polytheism, where some one of the many gods 
might with equal sense be invoked for success in a 
work of good or a work of evil, could not result in 
any great elevation or enlightenment of mankind. 

It is true that we find in those days some large 
souls who lived beyond their age, who suffered 
persecution and derision from their associates, and 
who sought to better the condition of mankind by 
the application of right principles. These prin- 
ciples were in no sense deduced from the super- 
stitions which, for a time, went by the name of 
religion, but were rather the result of a study of 
mankind and a contemplation of the inhumanity 
and injustice of the times. Such investigation 
reached a point where it encountered darkness and 
failure, and could go no farther. 

Among these ancient religions there was one 
which, however we may regard it in the brighter 
light of the present day, stood out in bold relief 
as compared with its associates. Judaism was 
monotheistic in a polytheistic time; it possessed 
the distinct advantage of a revelation of God from 
without, something tangible above and beyond 
man. It was a revelation of a God of infinite 
power, justice, mercy, and truth. In the begin- 



4 The Life That Now Is 

ning It was founded upon a code of laws which 
has been the basis for the jurisprudence and civ- 
ilization of every enlightened nation. That the 
mind of man was not, at the time of its intro- 
duction, sufficiently developed to grasp its great 
ideals, and that these could only be accepted by 
the use of suggestive symbols, is matter of little 
surprise. That in its development it should ab- 
sorb neighboring religions, and to some extent 
partake of their nature, is not a matter of wonder. 
That Aaron made the calf of gold, and that other 
leaders, in times of national unrest, permitted the 
introduction of practices which were not from the 
beginning, is due to human weakness. That, at 
the advent of our Saviour, Judaism had deterio- 
rated into ceremonial service without spirit and 
without life, in which the vital principles had been 
buried under the traditional accumulation of cen- 
turies, cannot be denied. 

In contradistinction to all this, the lowly Prophet 
of Nazareth came in an untoward generation pro- 
claiming a religion of life and a gospel of love. 
Against the militarism of Rome he taught peace 
on earth and good will to men; against the phi- 
losophy of Greece he taught the eternal truth; and 
withal he spoke with authority and not as the 
scribes. Jesus Christ did not seek after truth 
from the viewpoint of the human mind, but he 



Life 5 

proclaimed the truth as he had known it from all 
ages. He taught the foundation and develop- 
ment of character in a characterless age; he taught 
faith in an age of disbelief; he taught industry in 
an age of luxury and idleness, honesty in an age of 
avarice, fidelity in an age of faithlessness, rectitude 
in an age of wrongdoing, humility in an age of 
vanity, nonresistance in an age of contention and 
revenge, justice in an age of extortion and oppres- 
sion, liberality in an age of greed, harmony in an 
age of discord, and the Golden Rule in an age 
whose every thought was selfish. 

We must recognize that he not only himself 
possessed but that he taught to his hearers a wis- 
dom of man and his needs which justifies us in 
carefully searching his words for those truths 
which concern our welfare in this present life. Is 
it not as reasonable to suppose that the principles 
which underlie the greatest success in this com- 
mercial age were understood and taught by the 
great Exponent of human life as to suppose that 
the principles of all jurisprudence were embodied 
in the revelation of a just God to Moses ? The 
Saviour came that mankind might have life and 
have it more abundantly. More abundant life for 
you and for me is what the gospel teaches, if we 
be able to hear. 

With profound respect for the influence of 



6 The Life That Now Is 

Christ's teachings upon the morals, the ethics, and 
the religion of the world, still we may reverently 
say that he meant more than these. He meant in 
every sphere of human action, in every right aspi- 
ration of the human heart, in every just endeavor to 
do and to succeed, to give life and to give it more 
abundantly. While it cannot be gainsaid that his 
teachings have resulted in that marked uplifting 
of the world's civilization which has advanced 
commercial interests, which has accomplished 
great progress in the professions, in literature, in 
music, and in art, it yet remains for us to individ- 
ually appropriate those teachings to the everyday 
affairs of the life of each man and each woman. 

The principles of business and the science 
which underlies the art of commercial success have 
been grossly neglected by business men. Of twen- 
ty men who engage in business nineteen fail. The 
successful one has consciously or unconsciously 
practiced the principles taught by Jesus Christ. 
The science which underlies the art of business is 
broad, and covers every phase of human thought 
and character. Not all successful men are avowed 
followers of Christ, but all have employed in their 
undertakings at least a part of the principles of 
his teaching. To investigate these principles is 
our present duty; to employ them in our under- 
takings will be our future privilege. 



CHAPTER II 

Success 

A man*s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
which he possesseth. 

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, 
and lose his own soul? 

What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and 
lose himself? 

Man shall not live by bread alone. 

The life is more than meat, and the body is more than 
raiment. 

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; 
and all these things shall be added unto you. 

What is life, and what is success ? Neither the 
one nor the other consisteth in the abundance of 
the things which a man possesseth. Great suc- 
cess, thorough success, enduring and satisfying 
success, is neither in the hoarding of money, the 
acquisition of lands, nor the accumulation of chat- 
tels. The soul, the inner man, the quintessence of 
self-existence requires more, and never reaches 
satisfaction by the mere surrounding of itself with 
a great cluster of material objects. A Nebuchad- 
nezzar builds Babylon, but his reason is dethroned 
and he eats v^ith the beasts of the field. A Bel- 
shazzar drinks from golden goblets, but trembles 
as his doom is written by angelic hand. An 
Alexander conquers the then known world, but 



8 The Life That Now Is 

falls a victim to his own appetite. A Napoleon 
rises, conquers, rules, but dies an exile on Saint 
Helena. 

So it is with great reason and foresight that the 
Saviour asks what it shall profit a man if he ac- 
cumulate all these things, even to the gathering of 
all the money and goods of the whole world, and 
lose the higher enjoyment which they cannot 
bring. What advantageth it to gain acres upon 
acres and have discord in the home ? What profit 
is there in the oppression of fellow men and the 
neglect to train one's own child in the way he 
should go ? What gain is it to accumulate great 
riches by means which nurture in the heart a dis- 
trust of all men ? What enjoyment is in great 
wealth when it has been gained by the corruption 
of men, leaving in the mind of the corrupter the 
settled conviction that every man has his price? 
What shall it profit to have a larger and a finer 
dwelling than a competitor and no bodily health 
wherewith it may be enjoyed ? 

Man, the inner man, subsists not upon rich 
meat and rich drink, nor is he comforted by fine 
apparel. Life is something more. Even as the 
soul is greater than the mind, and as the mind is 
greater than the body, so is the body greater than 
those things requisite for its clothing and its 
maintenance. The error which humanity is com- 



Success 9 

mittlng is the forgetfulness of the dignity of self, 
and the centering of attention upon the material 
things with which a man may be surrounded. 

In choosing among life's blessings, the insight of 
Solomon deserves our emulation. If offered great 
riches, long life, or wisdom how many would, like 
Solomon, select the last as the greatest boon ? 

How, then, shall we strive to live, how shall we 
attain success, and after what things shall we seek ? 
He who came to give life and to give it more 
abundantly says, '^Seek ye first the kingdom of 
God, and his righteousness; and all these things 
shall be added unto you.'* 

There is not one who reads these lines who has 
not many times heard this saying of Christ, per- 
haps not one who has not memorized it in child- 
hood; but do we believe it ? Is there one who has 
really appropriated it to his own life as meaning, 
in regard to the life that now is, exactly what it 
says ? We have all read it with a vague feeling 
that it was all right, that it was a very nice thing 
to be good on Sunday; but if asked if it really and 
actually paid to stick to it at about two o'clock on 
Thursday afternoon, while trying to get the better 
of the other fellow in a horse trade, or a stock 
deal, or a real estate transaction, we might have 
some hesitancy in giving a perfectly frank answer. 

We all think, in rather an indefinite manner, 



10 The Life That Now Is 

that It is a nice thing to be good. Good ! O, how 
we abuse the word! Do we not realize the actual 
sin of mere negative goodness ? That is not the 
kind of goodness that Jesus taught. His teach- 
ings glow with the thought that we must be up 
and doing; that we must not only be good, but do 
good; that there is work for each one, and it must 
be well done. 

But let us analyze this saying of the Master, 
and decide whether it is, in reality, true or false. 
^^Seek ye first the kingdom of God/' Why first ? 
When we start to build a house we first lay the 
foundation to carry the superstructure, and, if we 
be correct builders, we lay it with sufficient 
strength to guarantee safety, for we know that if 
the foundation fail the house will be lost. But in 
business we neglect the foundation. We start to 
sell goods, to trade, and to engage in the multi- 
farious things which are comprised in commer- 
cialism. We forget that the thing which makes 
for success or failure is the man. We forget that 
it is his character and personality which give the 
power to impress and to persuade; his fidelity 
which inspires that confidence which gains and 
retains customers; his cheerfulness, his persever- 
ance, his industry, and his justice which attract or 
repel mankind. 

How many, before engaging in an enterprise, 



Success ii 

study to know whether the articles they have for 
market are worthy of themselves and will be of 
benefit to their customers ? A very successful ad- 
vertising writer was engaged at a large salary; 
after working a week he gave notice that he would 
break his contract unless the quality of the goods 
was raised to accord with the merits he was as- 
cribing to them. That man had character; he 
knew it was not good business to lie in order to 
sell goods. He could not afford it! The super- 
ficial preparation of the average business man is 
the cause of two thirds of the failures which the 
commercial agencies report from month to month. 

But why seek the kingdom of God ? Because 
it is not only the highest type of correct teaching 
which has been given to humanity, but because it 
delivers us from the soul-harrowing work of seek- 
ing, from our own standpoint, upward after the 
highest things. It brings to us the correct prin- 
ciples of life, of success and of business, from one 
who has known us from the beginning and who 
speaks to us with authority which we can accept 
without hesitation. It is the embodiment of all 
that is right and good and of all that will bring us 
true happiness, and, taken in connection with the 
words *^ and his righteousness,^^ represents the one 
thing needful in the business world. 

The righteousness of God ! That infinite right- 



12 The Life That Now Is 

eousness which, in our best moments, we can only 
hope to approach. Even as God's ways are 
higher than our ways, so are his thoughts higher 
than our thoughts; and so is the righteousness 
which he possesses, and which he would teach us 
to use in our daily work, infinitely above any right 
course of action which we could devise by years 
of study. 

This righteousness was made for man, and not 
man for it. Righteousness is the thing which will 
make man successful in all his right undertakings. 
It is the thing which will make him truly happy. It 
is the thing which will enable him to achieve, and 
leave no sting with the achievement. The trouble 
with our self-devised systems of success is that the 
rose has a thorn which pricks us even while we 
are smelling the delectable perfume of material 
success. 

But how about the other things being added unto 
us ? The laws of success and failure are as cer- 
tain as seedtime and harvest. Man is a natural 
being, endowed with certain powers which raise 
him above the animals and give him dominion 
over the earth. But he is not raised above the 
operation of the natural law which rules the uni- 
verse. In all of his undertakings, in all of his 
intercourse with men, his success and failure are 
governed by laws which have existed from the be- 



Success 13 

ginning, which will exist forever, and which are as 
unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Per- 
sians. If I place my hand in the fire I shall be 
burned; if I take proper care of my body I shall 
be welL If, in my dealing with men, I adhere to 
the great principles of life which make for success 
I shall succeed; in so far as I depart from those 
principles, by one jot or tittle, in so far I shall fail. 
God reigns, and his universe is governed by law. 



CHAPTER III 
Foundation 

But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that with- 
out a foundation built an house upon the earth; against 
which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it 
fell; and the ruin of that house was great. 

Not long ago a very large corporation desired a 
man for a position of responsibility, paying twenty 
thousand dollars per year. The directors speci- 
fied, first of all, that he must be a man who had 
been raised on a farm and who had worked his 
way through college without assistance. At first 
glance this seemed rather unjust to the many able 
men who had not spent the days of boyhood on 
a farm, as also to the great number who had ob- 
tained a college education without the necessity of 
relying upon their own resourcefulness. But the 
thing that particular corporation desired was foun- 
dation under the man's character, and the directors 
well knew that their specification insured a founda- 
tion which would stand. 

Why is it that so many of our greater men come 
from the rural districts and are self-educated ? Is 
it not that the circumstances surrounding their 
lives in the formative period of youth have de- 
veloped those qualities of self-reliance and hardi- 

14 



Foundation 15 

hood which enable them to perseveringly fight 
lifers battles with a clear eye and a kind heart ? 

In the thoughtless days of childhood we built 
playhouses without foundations, but in building 
for success the first requisite is to look well to the 
foundation. Even before we lay the foundation 
we must clear away from the building site the 
rubbish which has accumulated through careless 
years. We must excavate the loose earth which 
has no firmness or strength in itself, and, if we 
find not below a solid rock of inflexible will power 
upon which our foundation may rest, we must 
first lay a footing of purpose to do and to be. 
Then, and then only, are we ready to lay the 
great foundation stones of education and health 
upon which our character may be builded, and 
upon which it may stand unmoved by the storms 
of time. 

Education, taken literally, is the leading out of 
man, the development of the powers which sleep 
within him and which ordinarily lie dormant until 
some emergency calls them into action. Someone 
has said that in the character of Robinson Crusoe 
is portrayed the most highly educated man of the 
world. Certain it is that the various straits in 
which he found himself developed his powers of 
body, mind, and soul, and caused him to arise 
and do things which would have been impossible 



1 6 The Life That Now Is 

under more happy circumstances. To this self- 
development must be added that acquisition of 
knowledge which, by custom, we call education. 
Taken together, the discipline from within and the 
knowledge from without prepare a man to be 
worth while. 

The matter of health deserves broader con- 
sideration than it is usually accorded. There is 
health of the body, there is health of the mind, and 
there is health of the soul, and there is that com- 
plete health which enables the three divisions of 
man's nature to perform their respective tasks 
without discomfort to one another. It is indeed 
seldom that we see a person so evenly balanced 
that the mind can work actively and continuously 
without dwarfing the soul or weakening the body, 
and yet this is the true status of the human organ- 
ism as created. It is our business to be whole. 

In the wonderful one-horse chaise Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes has given a picture of a perfect man; 
a portrait of a man in whom the strength and per- 
sistence of soul, mind, and body are equally bal- 
anced, and in whom one part of the complex 
organism is not broken down by the wear and tear 
of strenuous living while another retains its vigor 
but loses its efficiency through the failure of the 
first. 

Christ says that he who heeds not his teaching 



Foundation 17 

is like a man who neglects his foundation and 
builds his house upon the earth. He who has an 
opportunity to learn the vital principles of life, the 
laws of success in all right undertakings, but who 
leans to his own understanding and disregards the 
law of life, rears a structure lacking stability. 

The business world of to-day is very largely 
using earth as a foundation. Too often do we 
find it unstable, able to support no great weight, 
and liable to be washed away. Notice how the 
Saviour depicts the ruin. When the stream of 
adversity beat vehemently upon the house it fell 
immediately, and its ruin was very great. It was 
not a mean house; on the contrary, it was a very 
great house. It was pleasing to the eye, all right 
in appearance; and it was so cleverly constructed 
that one could not detect the absence of a founda- 
tion. But in time of trial its ruin was instanta- 
neous. 

Why should one spend years in preparation for 
a profession, in which he hopes to earn a liveli- 
hood, and only weeks in preparation for business, 
in which he hopes to amass millions ? The whole 
system of preparation for business is hurried and 
woefully inadequate. Why do so many large es- 
tablishments employ only boys, and fill all vacan- 
cies by promotion from the lower ranks of em- 
ployees ? Because in this way only can they lay 



1 8 The Life That Now Is 

the foundation for successful work. It is well- 
nigh impossible to go out and hire a man who can 
fill a position of any great responsibility, because 
he lacks the foundation. 

Daily do we see men engaging in business for 
which they are not especially trained, men who 
hold to the opinion that business requires nothing 
but the work of to-day; they fail because of in- 
adequate strength in the foundation; because they 
*' without a foundation built an house upon the 
earth.'* 



CHAPTER IV 

Character 

Either make the tree good, and his fniit good; or else make 
the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known 
by his fruit. 

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 

Character-building is at once the greatest 
duty and the greatest privilege of the business 
world. Character is something which is not 
bought, found, nor learned. Character is the very 
essence of the personality, the essential under- 
current of man's nature, the man himself! It is 
forming during every hour of his existence, and 
every act has an influence upon its molding. We 
are by nature creatures of habit. The thing which 
we do for the first time to-day becomes easier to- 
morrow, and in a month or a year the act, whether 
good or bad, becomes to a greater or less degree 
mechanical, so that we do it almost without think- 
ing. Thus our every act tends toward the forma- 
tion of good or bad habits; and habits, in the 
aggregate, make character. 

Character is that which stands behind every im- 
pulse and every act of life. It is something more 
than the dropping of bad habits; something be- 
yond the elimination of profanity, drunkenness 

19 



20 The Life That Now Is 

and lewdness. It signifies the rounding out of the 
real man by the incorporation into his being, by 
force of habit, of industry, perseverance, honesty, 
fideUty, justice, and kindness. 

Have you talked with a man, small of stature, 
who seemed so large that you were almost afraid 
to express opinions contrary to his ? That was be- 
cause he had character; because he stood for some- 
thing vital; because in five minutes* conversation 
one could not but recognize that he was a real 
man. Why does the schoolboy of to-day speak 
the name of Patrick xlenry with awe? Is it be- 
cause he was an orator ? There have been many 
gifted speakers. Is it not rather because he stood 
for the vital principle of liberty ? Is the memory of 
Lincoln revered because he was our first martyred 
President, or because he stood for the equality of 
man f Has Saint Paul been honored for nineteen 
hundred years because he was a righteous Pharisee, 
because he was learned in Jewish law, because he 
was born a Roman citizen ? No, a thousand 
times, no ! Every Christian church delights to do 
him honor because he stood for salvation by faith 
in a crucified and risen Lord. 

What think you that David meant when he said 
to Solomon, ** Be thou strong therefore, and show 
thyself a man" ? Think you that he referred only 
to physical strength, to prowess, to the gathering 



Character 21 

in his hands of the reins of power over his fellow 
men ? No; those words stand for character. 
Show thyself a man, a man among men, a man 
before God, a man in thine own estimation. 

No words can more powerfully portray the value 
of such character than the Saviour's words, *^Out 
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." 
There are many who think that they can as well 
neglect character and make up for lack of the 
genuine article by glossing the surface with pleas- 
ing words and the business smile. It was to such 
that the Saviour's words were addressed, and the 
strength of the statement is greatly increased if we 
consider the circumstances under which it was 
delivered. Christ was speaking with certain mem- 
bers of the Pharisees, a Jewish sect at the time 
numbering about six thousand, which had attained 
great repute. Saint Paul mentioning as a mark of 
distinction that he was a Pharisee and the son of 
a Pharisee. The members of this sect were not 
only exact in the performance of all requirements 
of the Levitical law, but gave equal heed to care- 
ful observance of a great mass of ceremonials 
which had been woven about the law, and which 
was known as the "tradition of the elders." So 
it was to the very first people of the time, to the 
leaders among the nation, that the Saviour was 
speaking, and it was at their real inner character 



22 The Life That Now Is 

that he struck when he said, ^'How can ye, being 
evil, speak good things ? for out of the abundance 
of the heart the mouth speaketh/' To all out- 
ward appearance righteous to a fault, they yet 
lacked character. 

And we need not imagine that superhuman 
power is necessary to discern between genuine 
character and its counterfeit. In spite of all our 
attempts at simulation, men know what we are. 
The great business of the man who would succeed 
is to be rather than to seem. The cry of the age 
is for genuineness. Give us real men! 

The comparison of men's characters to a tree, 
and of the results which they accomplish to the 
fruit of the tree, is most pertinent. There are cer- 
tain results which come from the acts and the 
words of each one for each day of life. Taken in 
the aggregate, these results express what we are 
and show forth our lives as in a mirror. Let us 
then dig about the root of the tree and cultivate 
it that it may be strong and vigorous, and let us 
graft on its branches those buds of justice and 
truth which it has not in itself, to the end that the 
fruit may be sweet to our taste and become a 
blessing to ourselves and to those who shall come 
after us. 



CHAPTER V 
Development 

First the blade, then the ear, after that the full com in the 
ear. 

There Is something about Lord Byron's awak- 
ing one morning to find himself famous which 
appeals very strongly to human nature. We 
would like to forthwith secure the object of our 
ambition. We feel that to be rich, to be famous, 
to attain high office, would satisfy us; but our 
growing large enough for the blessings we covet is 
a matter to which we give little heed. 

We glory in the story of General Putnam leav- 
ing his plow in the field and going to lead the 
Continental army to victory; but we forget that he 
was but training to serve his country when, as a 
boy, he tied a rope about his waist and went into 
the cave for the wolf which had been destroying 
the farmers' sheep. 

The world's greatest pianist, when called a 
genius, answered, ^^Men now call me a genius, 
but before I was a genius I was a drudge." 

Heaven is not reached by a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies. 

And we climb to the summit round by round. 
23 



24 The Life That Now Is 

Nothing comes to perfection except by develop- 
ment. We are aware that our bodies attain their 
normal size by growth, we are aware that our 
muscles attain strength and elasticity by training, 
we are aware that our minds gain strength with 
years and healthful mental exercise, but do we 
realize the power that is within us to force the 
growth and the development of the higher facul- 
ties of life ? 

We cultivate the flowers and the trees, we 
carefully feed and house the domestic animals, 
perchance we give care to the development of our 
own bodies; but when the day's work is done we 
read the ghastly details of two murders and a 
suicide, we go to bed with a novelette written by 
an imbecile, and then complain because a man 
who has enjoyed educational advantages succeeds 
where we fail. And yet we know, although we 
shun the truth, that twenty minutes of each day 
given by any mature man or woman to persistent 
study with a definite aim will educate one to al- 
most any desired standard. We know that Ben- 
jamin Franklin borrowed books and read all night 
to complete them before the day on which he had 
promised their return, and it may be there are 
among our daily associates men who are passing 
us in the struggle for excellence who are reading 
things worth while in the hours of the evening 



Development 25 

which we are wasting in idleness or in the perusal 
of trash which causes a cancerous growth instead 
of a healthy development. 

Growth must be steady; it must become a habit. 
Just a little addition to mentality each day will 
make a mental giant in ten years. Anything that 
is worth while takes time. Consider the rings of 
the giants of the forest, which represent years of 
steady growth; consider the mushrooms in the 
market, which grow in a night. 

That the growth in stature and in strength of 
body is governed by natural law we do not deny, 
and we give to this due regard by avoidance of 
those things which tend to retard the growth of 
the body or to weaken its powers, but in the de- 
velopment of the higher faculties we are heedless 
of the natural law of growth. We seem totally 
oblivious of the fact that the rapid glancing over 
a paragraph of little interest to us has a deleterious 
influence upon our power of concentration. We 
do those things which we know weaken the will, 
impair the memory, and dull the sensibilities. 

The language of the Saviour indicates, indeed, 
something beyond growth, something more than 
mere increase in stature and in strength: *' First 
the blade, then the ear, after that the full com in 
the ear/* The indicated change in formation co- 
incident with growth is quite as true of life in its 



26 The Life That Now Is 

application to the development of mind and soul 
as in its application to the grass of the field. We 
have in ourselves the power to reach outward and 
upward after lofty ideals, and to attain higher 
realities. We must, however, work for them day 
by day; we must grow up to them. Then shall 
we go on from strength to strength. 

May we not strive to develop into greatness ? — 
not to reach out and draw great things unto our- 
selves, but to develop in ourselves such greatness 
of soul, and such capacity of mind, that we shall 
be great by intrinsic merit ? 



CHAPTER VI 

Achievement 

But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your 
consolation. 

The man whose aspirations do not rise above 
materialism has one of two futures in prospect: 
on the one hand, failure; on the other hand, the 
reaching of his goal and the realization that it is 
vanity. We can scarcely ask the reader's indul- 
gence to mention Alexander's tears, even though 
they so perfectly illustrate the point that, in 
worldly matters, the joy is in the race and not in 
the prize. 

Not long ago, while eating an expensive dinner, 
an elderly and very wealthy man said, "'This is 
one of the few joys left to me.'' How many men 
in moderate circumstances, striving to support 
their families in comfort and to rear their children 
in honor, working honestly in the day and hoping 
honestly for the morrow, have in their lives that 
joy which is taken away from him who is surfeited 
with the goods of this world ! 

When Russell Sage had amassed millions he 
was asked why he still labored so persistently to 
gain money for which he had no need. 

He quickly asked, "Were you ever a boy ?'* 

** A good while ago," his questioner replied. 

27 



28 The Life That Now Is 

*'Did you play * keeps' at marbles ?'' 

^^Yes, indeed." 

'^Why ? Did you need the marbles ?'' 

There is not, except to the warped soul of the 
miser, pleasure in the mere fact of accumulation; 
it is in the doing of things that we find delight, 
and in no nation is this love of achievement more 
strongly apparent than in the American people. 
From our forefathers, only a few generations past, 
who subdued a great land, who made the wilder- 
ness a place of habitation, who overcame the beast 
and the savage, who caused the dry places to be 
well watered, who made the earth give up her 
hidden treasure, and who gave freely of their lives 
that a nation might here arise in which freedom 
and equality among men should develop truth and 
righteousness — from them we inherit the passion 
to do and to dare. 

The success of the American people is due 
more largely to the development of this principle 
than to any other trait in our national character. 
Throughout the land, from the least to the great- 
est, there is marked evidence of pride and joy in 
the work of the day. Whatever our work may 
be, we glory in doing it a little better than any- 
one else could do it. And this is right. It tends 
not only toward our own advancement, but to- 
ward raising the standard of efficiency in all work. 



Achievement 29 

A young parson called upon a member of his 
congregation who was a cobbler and expressed his 
pleasure at finding him so happy at his lowly task. 
*' Lowly task?'' answered the shoemaker. *'No 
work is lowly if well done. You make sermons, 
I make shoes; and if at the end my shoes be found 
better than your sermons I shall wear the brighter 
crown.'' 

The man who will take such joy in a humble 
occupation that he will perform his task in the 
best manner possible is unwittingly fitting himself 
for a higher place; not merely because his em- 
ployer's attention may be attracted, but because 
the man is himself growing, he is developing 
something better in himself, he has an ideal, and 
he is working a transformation. 

Andrew Carnegie says one is unfortunate who 
arrives at the age of accountability with a fortune 
accumulated by his father. We have often heard 
that to be born rich is a misfortune, and we are 
accustomed to regard the statement as a joke, 
feeling that personally we would have no objection 
to assuming such a hindrance. The truth is that 
to be born with a great quantity of this world's 
goods deprives one of the incentive which is, with 
rare exceptions, necessary to arouse us to that 
great activity of which every man is capable. 

Of course, there are notable exceptions. There 



30 The Life That Now Is 

are numerous cases of rich men's sons who are 
not unworthy of the fathers from whom their 
heritage has come. But in a commercial nation 
life and the circumstances attendant upon it are 
largely governed by the wealth which one has 
inherited or which he may acquire, and the par- 
ticular fact that J. P. Morgan inherited vast 
wealth and yet became a financial leader of 
mighty personal power does not disprove the 
general fact that the poor boy has a powerful 
incentive to be up and doing that he may not 
only satisfy the wants of the body, but that he 
may acquire that power which he cannot fail to 
observe as concomitant with the possession of 
riches. 

If, however, in the pursuit of wealth in which, 
to a greater or less degree, all engage, we neglect 
not those things which make for true and lasting 
success, if we do not allow our ideals to be over- 
come by the deceitfulness of riches, we shall in the 
end attain the goods of this world in sufficient 
measure, and with these that other joy which 
passeth not away. 



CHAPTER VII 
Sources of Power 

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. 
At a Washington banquet, a while ago, a 
learned senator said that the nation's peace and 
prosperity depended upon the stomachs of its 
legislators. The source of power in man is the 
soul or spirit, and the source of weakness is the 
flesh- The flesh must be taken to include both 
the mind and the body. It is to the lack of per- 
fect development of mind and body, considered 
separately or in conjunction, that our want of 
power is attributable. 

Embraced in the mind we have intellect, will, 
and sensibility, each of which may be developed 
to an almost infinite degree. The power to think 
correctly and persistently is not fully developed in 
any man. If the reader doubts this statement he 
is invited to think persistently of one thing for 
three consecutive minutes. The habit of thinking 
diffusely, of permitting the thoughts to dwell upon 
many things at one time, or to wander aimlessly 
from one subject to another, commonly known as 
lack of concentration, is a very grave fault, which 
we may correct by forcing ourselves to think of 
one thing continuously for a few minutes at a time. 



31 



32 The Life That Now Is 

At first this will be difficult work, but it will pay, 
as it will ultimately lead to the priceless ability of 
speedily forming correct judgment. 

The will power, which in most of us is strong 
when it concerns those in our power but weak 
when it concerns ourselves, is susceptible of the 
greatest training. He who would control others 
must first master self. We neglect the will power 
to such an extent that we must acknowledge to 
ourselves that we perform those duties which are 
pleasant and neglect those duties which are un- 
pleasant. We have personally found a great 
means for strengthening will power to lie in the 
making of a list of those things which we ought to 
do and systematically following the list throughout 
the day. If this plan be followed one will find, 
before the day is done, some unpleasant duty on 
the list and immediately there arises in the mind 
an inclination to perform another task first, leav- 
ing the unpleasant one until a later time. If this 
untoward inclination be followed, the will is 
thereby weakened. One must unflinchingly go 
through the list in the order set down. 

This is, of course, merely one instance of method 
for strengthening the will and is subject to infinite 
variation as to ways and means. If one have the 
desire, means will present themselves. It may be 
said, in general, that the performance of any un- 



Sources of Power 33 

pleasant task, with the thought in mmd that it is 
done for the express purpose of strengthening the 
will, cannot fail to accomplish that purpose if per- 
sisted in from day to day. He that ruleth himself 
is, indeed, in a fair way to become a ruler over 
many things. 

Sensibility is the greatest source of mental weak- 
ness, and is not usually in harmony with the in- 
tellect, and yet it may be trained to harmonize 
with our highest good. We usually feel like doing 
one thing while our reason tells us that we should 
do another, and then the will must determine which 
shall govern. Not to enumerate all the feelings of 
which the mind of man is capable, one may be 
mentioned as an illustration. 

Anger is probably that one with which we have 
to contend most strenuously in ordinary business. 
The man who loses his temper on slight provoca- 
tion is pretty sure to do the wrong thing, and as 
sure to regret it when his reason gains the ascend- 
ency. We have noticed that those men who are 
most successful in difficult negotiations do not 
easily lose their temper, and that when a man be- 
comes very angry he usually loses sight of the 
main point at issue, and cares only for the provo- 
cation of the moment. 

All of our feelings should be attuned to the 
finer aspirations of life. Every sensibility should 



34 The Life That Now Is 

be governed and controlled by that reason with 
which we are endowed. 

We are accustomed to think of the body as a 
necessary evil; of its weaknesses as things which 
are somehow visited upon us, for which we are not 
to blame and from which we may not be free. 
This view and this belief are the great curses of 
mankind. The condition of bodily health and 
strength, and the longevity of man, within reason- 
able limits, are matters which are in the hands of 
man himself and matters to which it is both his 
duty and his privilege to give careful heed. 

We know very well that the stomach and the 
digestive organs are the seat of our physical 
strength or weakness, and yet we eat those things 
which we know we should not, and we eat quanti- 
ties which we know to be far in excess of our re- 
quirements. We know that life-sustaining oxygen 
is drawn into the lungs with every breath, and yet 
not once in a day do we breathe properly or fully. 
We seem to consider that lungs were given us and 
that they will last a certain number of years with- 
out any attention on our part. O, if we could 
give to our lungs the same attention which we 
give to the mechanism of a machine which we 
buy, how great would be the saving of life! We 
care for the machine in the days wherein it is 
strong and able to perform much work, having in 



Sources of Power 35 

mind the preservation of its effectiveness; we care 
for the body only when its strength and vigor have 
wasted away, endeavoring then, often too late, to 
restore it to normal efficiency. 

It cannot be said that we exercise wrongly, be- 
cause, generally speaking, we do not exercise at 
all. We do go out and take a long walk once a 
week or once a month, and we walk with head 
down and shoulders drooping, so that the lungs 
have not proper room to work, and it is hard to 
see where we derive much benefit except in our 
feet. Civilized men do not exercise those portions 
of the body which give proper development to the 
abdominal organs, because it is easier to take little 
liver pills. Most of us, when in school, learned 
enough simple exercises to form the basis of a 
physical training which, if persisted in, will give to 
the body that erectness, strength, and vigor which 
will enable it to quickly respond to all the de- 
mands of the spirit and which make for success 
in any undertaking. 

No general would hope to win victory without 
the obedient support of the men in the ranks. 
And yet we seek to attain success by the exercise 
of our higher powers, unmindful of the support 
which these powers need and which they may 
have if we give due attention to what we are 
pleased to term the lower powers of our being. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Effort 

Seek, and ye shall find. 

The limit of success is the desire to attain. The 
reason that the accomplishments of our lives are so 
small is that we consider the limitation of circum- 
stances in which we find ourselves as final. We 
regard the obstacles to success as insurmountable, 
and we make no serious attempt to scale the 
heights on which we see those things which we 
desire to obtain. 

Dwight L. Moody wrote on the margin of his 
Bible, *'If God be your partner make your plans 
wide.^' Disregarding the fact that the Creator is 
the partner of every just man in every right un- 
dertaking, we dwarf our lives by the narrowness 
of our plans. The spark of the Infinite Mind lies 
dormant in the brain of each of his dependent co- 
workers, and it needs only the recognition of this 
infinite and eternal birthright to cause it to burst 
into a flame of appalling brightness. 

"Where there's a will there's a way" is an adage 
which few properly value. We may believe it in 
a perfunctory sort of manner, but we do not ac- 
cept its truth in that full measure which enables us 

to appropriate it to our own benefit. The boy 

36 



Effort 37 

who says, 'Til try, sir/* will sooner or later send 
back Commodore Perry^s dispatch, *^We have 
met the enemy and they are ours/* 

The will of man is a power superior to all the 
forces of nature. God gave to man dominion 
over the earth, and over every creature which was 
created upon the face of the earth or in the waters 
thereof, and he gave to man a will which, when 
properly cultivated, enables him to do marvelously. 

We have not risen to the possibilities of will. 
Once in a thousand years the world has produced 
a man who has refused to accept any limitations 
of environment, who has refused to be governed by 
the circumstances surrounding his birth and train- 
ing, who has been uninfluenced by the prevailing 
spirit of his time, who has known what he wanted 
to accomplish and has conceived that the power is 
within himself to overcome every hindrance and to 
complete the work whereunto he is called. Under 
cover of darkness Wolfe scales the heights of 
Quebec and passes into history as great, because 
he dared to attempt much. But men in general, 
in all stations of life, accept conditions very much 
as they find them, and they allow the ambitions of 
youth to be overcome by fear of the obstacles 
which appear on the one hand like unscalable 
cliffs rising above them, while below they see paths 
of ease leading along pleasant valleys in which 



38 The Life That Now Is 

travel is easy. Thus they proceed with the masses, 
because one cannot expect, when he takes the 
path that is easy, but that he will have abundant 
company. It is the desire to do, the stern deter- 
mination to succeed, which alone raises a man 
above his fellows and gives to him places of honor. 

The thing we most need is this determination to 
go after the more desirable things in life. More 
or less do all suffer from Mr. Micawber's state of 
mind — ^waiting for something to turn up — ^waiting 
for the good things of life to come to us. Nothing 
ever turns up for our benefit unless some man goes 
out and turns it up. The inertia which is one of 
the fundamental laws of nature is ever present in 
the affairs of men. Nothing worth while develops 
itself; it requires the most diligent attention, the 
must untiring perseverance, the greatest faith, and 
that determination which knows not how to fail, 
to move things in the business world. 

O, how little do we attempt, and how puerile 
are our aspirations! It is true we may, in mo- 
ments of meditation, have high aspirations, but 
when have we them in that full sense in which we 
expect to actually accomplish those great things 
for which we long ? How many of these aspira- 
tions assume a definite shape and impress them- 
selves upon us, so that we say, *^This one thing I 
do'' ? And even though, on a birthday or a New 



Effort 39 

Yearns Day, we form such a resolution, how many 
days do we ding to it ? The effort of life must be 
strong and continuous throughout the years. 

Someone says this is idealism, this is not prac- 
tical, this sounds like hitching the wagon to a star. 
Well, let us hitch our wagon to a star — and get 
behind and push! While we think about pushing 
other people and other things, we seldom realize 
that it is ourselves who need the pushing. There 
is nothing the average man needs so much as 
pushing, and he needs that pushing not from with- 
out, but he needs to gather all his resources like 
a strong man about to run a race, and then direct 
this concentrated energy toward pushing himself to 
ultimate achievement. 



CHAPTER IX 

Performance 

The night cometh, when no man can work. 
If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. 
These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other 
undone. 

Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, 
I will liken him unto a wise man. 

It is said that when John F. Stevens, late chief 
engineer of the Panama Canal, was a young en- 
gineer constructing a piece of railroad in the West, 
his men became demoralized through the influence 
of a saloon which was located near their camp. 
As the nuisance was not on railroad land the 
young engineer had no legal redress. Becoming 
exasperated, he walked into the saloon one morn- 
ing and asked the proprietor when he was going to 
leave camp. 

*'When I get good and ready,'* answered the 
tough. 

*'I am going now,'* answered Stevens, as he 
lighted a dynamite bomb and threw it behind the 
bar. 

Procrastination Is the great evil which hinders 
every business man and prevents him from achiev- 
ing that of which he is capable. The night com- 
eth, not only at the end when our bodies and our 

40 



Performance 41 

faculties of mind are no longer able to respond to 
the ambition to accomplish great things which, in 
earlier years, we have postponed, but the night 
Cometh at frequent intervals in each life. 

The great truth which we must grasp from the 
words of our Saviour prompts us to be up and 
doing right now. This is well understood in busi- 
ness, as evidenced by the expressions *'Get busy" 
and *'Do it now," which we laugh at as slang 
phrases invented by some facetious fellow. And 
yet they possess the very germ of truth. The 
thing which presents itself for action must have 
immediate attention. We must work to-day. 

It is one thing to know what we ought to do; 
it is quite another thing to do it. One of the 
greatest errors of the philosophy of Socrates was 
that he assumed that humanity would do the right 
thing if it knew the right, and hence he spent his 
life in seeking to know the truth and in teaching 
others the principles of right living. In this age 
there is small excuse for the man who does not 
know the principles of life, the things which make 
for success; and yet where shall we find one man 
who consistently and persistently does the things 
which he knows will give to himself, and to those 
dependent upon him, the greatest measure of 
high and enduring success, and of permanent 
happiness ? 



42 The Life That Now Is 

In doing things, we usually select certain things 
and feel that, having done these, the obligation 
does not rest upon us to perform other duties 
which, in a vague way, we feel should be done. 
The Saviour's words are most clear: ^^ These ought 
ye to have done, and not to leave the other un- 
done/' The performance must be full and com- 
plete. Whether the several duties which lie at our 
door be small or large, each must have that care- 
ful attention incumbent upon us because of our 
knowledge that the thing requires doing. Christ 
was speaking to the leaders among the Jews, 
whose scrupulous care in paying tithes and in 
observing the ceremonial law was regarded as the 
fullest performance of duty. He says to them 
that they observe these things and have omitted 
judgment, mercy, and faith, which are weightier 
matters of the law. He is then careful not to 
allow them to construe his teaching as in any way 
lessening the value of what they have done, or 
relieving them from the obligations imposed by the 
law, and so he says that they ought not to leave 
undone the things they have been doing, but that 
they ought also to have done the others. 

We have been accustomed to think of a wise 
man as of one whose mind is stored with a vast 
accumulation of knowledge. We speak of one as 
a ^'walking encyclopedia''; we respect one whose 



Performance 43 

fund of information is such that he can answer 
questions about a multiplicity of things concerning 
which we are ignorant; we regard him as wise. 
Not so; Christ says that the wise man is that one 
who performs according to his knowledge. The 
one who not only hears and learns, but the one 
who doeth, is wise. He is wise in the highest 
sense because he not only stores his mind with 
words of wisdom, but he assimilates the truth, he 
makes it a part of himself, he incorporates it into 
the habits of his daily life, and thus he lives in 
himself, and in his intercourse with men, the wis- 
dom which other men gain and hold only in the 
abstract. 

We shall find no greater causes for human fail- 
ure, for human misery and distress, than in the 
sin of procrastination, in the love of inaction, in the 
refusal to compel our bodies to perform those 
things we know they should, and in self-exonera- 
tion over duty half done. 

We are known as a nation which does things; 
a nation in whose great heart the love of initiative 
is strong; indeed, it has been said that this is the 
characteristic of our national life. How far, upon 
mature deliberation, shall each one find himself 
from fully living up to the ideal of this prin- 
ciple ? Let us work while it is day! 



CHAPTER X 
Singleness of Purpose 

No man can serve two masters. 

The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and 
the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word. 

And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when 
they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and 
riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to per- 
fection. 

Benedict Arnold stands in American history 
as a marked example of the failure of that life 
whose service is divided between two masters. 
Yet in the most upright mind the purposes of life 
are often so divided that the effort of the worker 
is as unfruitful as though he were a traitor to men 
instead of a mere traitor to self. 

That no man can serve two masters consistently, 
either with profit to those masters or with honor 
and ultimate satisfaction to himself, has been 
abundantly evidenced in the great upheavals 
which have occurred in corporate and municipal 
affairs throughout the land during recent years. 

It is not, however, with especial reference to 
this thought that these words of the Saviour are 
introduced, but rather to bring home to each man 
the truth that his individual efforts must be con- 
centrated, that his purpose in life must be un- 

44 



Singleness of Purpose 45 

divided. There must be a great single purpose 
leading him on to achieve great success. If other- 
wise, justice cannot be done to any one of the 
various ambitions which he may have from day to 
day. 

The age is gone o'er 
When a man may in all things be all. 

Every man who would accomplish anything 
worthy of a man must have one masterful am- 
bition in life, to satisfy which he is willing to 
eliminate minor joys and to pass minor disap- 
pointments without regret. There can be no great 
achievement without a great concentration of pur- 
pose. The realization of this principle, at least in 
a measure, has led to great specialization and 
division of labor in the industries and professions, 
and in every field of human endeavor. 

Our age 
Is too vast, and too complex, for one man alone 
To embody its purpose, and hold it shut close 
In the palm of his hand. 

The various duties which one man performed in 
a past generation are now divided among six men, 
in order that each man's entire attention may be 
given to a single branch of an industry, or to a 
single phase of thought. 

There were giants in those 
Irreclaimable days; but in these days of ours 
In dividing the work, we distribute the powers. 

In the vicinity of the Lake of Galilee, in an 



46 The Life That Now Is 

agricultural country where sowing and reaping 
were so much a part of the life of the people that 
the various influences which made or marred their 
crops were a matter of everyday concern, Jesus de- 
livered the parable of the sower, which is, in respect 
to the similitude between the life of mankind and 
the life of the vegetable kingdom, the greatest 
utterance of all time. 

The word of wisdom is welcomed by each one; 
we even hear and decide that henceforth right 
principles shall govern our thoughts, our words, 
and our deeds. But the distracting cares which 
are incident to business life and the desire for 
other things entering in choke the true principles 
which we have heard and by which we have de- 
sired to live. 

The pleasures of life, taken broadly, constitute 
perhaps the greatest of the thorns. We love ease, 
we love almost anything better than the work we 
have in hand, although it should of itself be our 
greatest delight. These things first draw us away 
from the doing of those things which we know 
require doing until at length, through the scattering 
of our thoughts and desires, we forget that we had 
concentrated our ambitions upon a great purpose 
and we finally lose our hold upon the great aim 
of life. 

It has been said that a man can reach his high- 



Singleness of Purpose 47 

est success only in a business which he loves; and 
yet the love of a business is but the natural out- 
growth of that concentrated and persistent atten- 
tion which causes one to acquire a familiarity with 
all its points of excellence which makes him an 
enthusiast in his calling, and enthusiasm begets 
success. 

Fruit brought to perfection is what we want. 
We do not want our tree to bear half-developed 
fruit; cooking apples do not bring the highest price. 
We want rather those great luscious mellow apples 
which seem to melt in the mouth, and which sell 
for such a price that we cannot buy so many as 
we want. The only way to bring our ambition to 
its full fruition is to persistently shut out every 
leaning toward the things which would draw our 
thoughts or our acts away from the great single 
aim which leads to success. 



CHAPTER XI 

Faith 

Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? 
O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? 
If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that 
believeth. 

Does the practical business man who reads 
these lines slightly scofF at the suggestion that faith 
is a factor of success in business life ? Gladstone 
did not sneer, and Wanamaker does not scoff, at 
faith in Almighty God, but each assigns his success 
to an unfailing trust in Divine Providence. 

Faith is a very broad term. There is faith in 
God, there is faith in mankind, there is faith in 
self, and there is faith in our work. 

Faith in God involves faith in the supreme law 

of the universe. In the beginning it involved faith 

that the seasons should regularly recur through all 

time, so that seedtime and harvest should not fail 

in the earth. This recurrence has continued for 

so long a time that we have ceased to doubt it. 

And yet we fail to believe that, in the practical 

affairs of business life, in all our dealings with our 

fellow men, there is a providential eye overlooking 

our undertakings, and that divine law governs all 

our doings as truly as it clothes the grass of the 

48 



Faith 49 

field and brings to full development the bloom of 
the lily. 

Is he not, then, a wise man who seeks to know 
the laws of God as applied to the human race, 
even as the careful farmer studies the science of 
agriculture, knowing that its laws are unchange- 
able ? Is he not, then, also wise who, when he 
has learned those laws, has unfailing faith in their 
unchangeable working for the good of mankind ? 

Faith in God involves, further, belief in the per- 
sonal providence of God — the individual care of a 
Father for each one of his children. O that we 
might become larger men and women by that 
reaching out of the soul which joins mankind to 
the Infinite! Grasping the chain which binds the 
soul to God! The greatest uplifting of which hu- 
manity is capable, the greatest ambitions to which 
the human soul may aspire, the greatest persever- 
ance in the face of seemingly insurmountable ob- 
stacles, and the greatest ultimate achievement, 
spring from faith in the Father. 

Faith in mankind lies at the foundation of all 
commerce. All business is based on confidence. 
When the confidence of the people in a great 
financier is shaken panic ensues. When one loses 
a man's confidence his trade goes to another. 

But there is another side to faith in humanity; 
we may mold the characters of associates and em- 



50 The Life That Now Is 

ployees by cultivating our own faith in them. 
Have you not seen the distrustful man, suspicious 
of everyone, always trying to get ahead of the 
other man before the other man can get ahead of 
him ? Does such a one get for himself happiness, 
and does he get the best from those whom he 
ever distrusts ? 

There is nothing else in business so good as 
placing a man upon honor. If we treat men as 
though they were true, we shall not only find that 
they will be true, but we shall gain for our own 
interests that large measure of loyalty which can- 
not be purchased, and at the same time we shall 
develop in ourselves that love for humanity which 
is a great source of happiness, and which will in- 
spire us to greater endeavor and to greater success. 

Faith in self lies at the foundation of all under- 
takings. Self-reliance is a part of the armor 
without which no man has a right to enter the 
lists. To be sure, there is an overconfidence of 
false pride which is offensive, but few of us have 
reached maturity without having egotism driven 
from us by rude blows. 

A man must realize that he has in himself the 
power to will and to do, the power to conceive 
and to accomplish. Faith in self must be so 
thoroughly grounded that it will not be momen- 
tarily shaken in time of trial. We must be firm in 



Faith 51 

the conviction that we can and shall succeed in 
all our undertakings. Hear the words of General 
Grant before Vicksburg: " I will fight it out on this 
line if it takes all summer/' There is the high note 
of confidence in himself to accomplish the thing he 
has undertaken to do, and of persistence without 
a doubt of ultimate success. 

Faith in the work which we have mapped out 
for ourselves is not of less importance. Too much 
care cannot be given to a thorough investigation of 
the work, to reaching a correct decision as to its 
worthiness, but when we are once sure that it is 
right, from that day forth we must have unfailing 
confidence in the thing which we desire to accom- 
plish, in its worth and in its final success. 

Continual doubt and uncertainty of God, of 
men, of self, or of our work, renders success in 
any large measure absolutely impossible, while the 
man whose faith fails in a crisis, who *^ loses his 
nerve,'* sees the work of years fall in a day. 



CHAPTER XII 

Industry 

Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? 

Charles Dickens, when asked the secret of 
his success, said it lay in ^^ taking pains/' An 
eminent writer of a later day, recently returned 
from the Klondike, was banqueted in San Fran- 
cisco, and he, likewise, was asked the secret of 
success. ^^I will answer,'' said he, ^4n the man- 
ner of a miner who had added claim upon claim 
and amassed considerable wealth. When asked 
how he always won the coveted treasure of the 
earth, he said, *Well, I never told anybody before, 
but rU tell you — I just keep digging holes.'" 

To say that there can be no success without 
work is trite. We are a nation of workers. We 
love to work. We cannot exist without work. It 
is characteristic of the American business man that 
he is *^like a fish out of water" when he is not 
busy. 

But is this mad rush, this everlasting *^ getting 
busy," real industry ? It may be set down as a 
general rule that, of a half dozen men employed 
in an office, that one who appears the most busy 
is accomplishing the least. There is such a thing 



52 



Industry 53 

as being fidgety and fussy, and there is a very 
distinct thing of being steadily industrious. 

We recently stood at the corner of Congress 
Street and Wabash Avenue, Chicago, at five min- 
utes before eight and v^atched the morning crow^d 
coming in on the ''alley L/* Dov^n the stairs 
they came, running, jumping, crowding, a mad- 
dening rush like frightened beasts driven through 
a cattle chute. Reaching the ground, they ran 
hither and thither, each one hastening to reach 
his appointed task at the opening hour. Is this 
industry, or merely hurry ? 

The first characteristic of industry is that it has 
a definite object. Christ explained his employ- 
ment by the statement that he must be about his 
Father's business. He had a definite object in 
view. He knew what was expected of him, and 
even at the age of twelve years we find him di- 
recting his energies toward that object. 

Most of the workers in this world remind one 
of a vast army marching to a supposedly great 
conquest, their destination known only to the 
commander. They get up in the morning, they 
get downtown at a certain hour, they go through 
a set routine and perform certain duties; when the 
clock strikes five or six, as the case may be, the 
desks are closed and the men go home. What 
they came downtown to do they do not know 



54 The Life That Now Is 

and perhaps they do not care. They give not a 
moment^s thought to whether they have really 
accomplished anything during the day. They 
have simply been working and they have been 
^^ awfully busy/' O, for the day when each worker 
shall count that day lost whose evening brings him 
not nearer the fulfillment of a great ambition and 
a great purpose in life! 

It will be noted that Christ began his work 
advantageously. He did not begin to question and 
answer with persons who would not appreciate 
the importance of his doctrine. He went to the 
doctors of the law, to those who were supposedly 
most learned in his Father's business; and that 
they were, even then, in a measure prepared for 
his advent is shown by the fact that all who heard 
him were astonished. It is no irreverence to here 
state that the most humble worker who will go to 
his place of business with a set purpose to accom- 
plish certain things, and to use every minute of 
the day in an advantageous manner toward the 
reaching of that end, will astonish all those with 
whom he comes in contact. 

We hear a great deal in these days about sys- 
tem in business, and the word "system" has be- 
come in some of our minds almost deified, as the 
personification of all that is best in business 
methods. It is neither more nor less than working 



Industry 55 

advantageously. The carpenter carries nails in 
the pockets of his apron, and yet we have seen a 
business man spend valuable minutes in searching 
among a great pile of papers for a pen or a blot- 
ter. This principle of having the things we re- 
quire at hand, when carried into the higher spheres 
of speech and thought, accomplishes wonderful re- 
sults. We know a man upon whom great respon- 
sibility rests who never leaves his desk for any 
object which he may need. He can hire someone 
whose time is worth less than his own to take 
those steps and thus save for greater things an 
hour's time in the course of a day; working ad- 
vantageously, that is all. 

Industry further involves the idea of willing and 
cheerful work; not working to kill time, nor to 
supply thoughts to fill a space which might other- 
wise be a vacuum, but real willingness to do the 
things which may be necessary to achieve a de- 
sired end. The heart in the work is what makes 
the work worth while, and brings nearer day by 
day the result which is sought. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Promptitude 

While they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they 
that were ready went in with him to the marriage : and the 
door was shut. 

A VERY successful man made it a rule never to 
be late at any appointment and never to arrive 
more than five minutes in advance of an engage- 
ment. Few invariably keep their appointments; 
and yet it is an easy thing to so dispose our time 
that no promise may be broken. It has been said 
that great men always have time. Not that they 
really have any more time than lesser personalities, 
but they so manage their affairs, with due regard 
to the demands upon their time, that they appear 
to be never hurried nor unable to keep an en- 
gagement. 

The matter of time is of vital importance in all 
business undertakings, and one of the first ne- 
cessities to a successful man is the capable man- 
agement of his own time. When a man's work is 
so arranged that he must be in great haste to keep 
an appointment, several untoward results are un- 
avoidable. He must give annoyed and incom- 
plete attention to the work through which he is 
hurrying, and the chances are that he will over- 

S6 



Promptitude 57 

look some matter of vital interest. Then he must 
exhaust his nervous energy by rushing to the place 
at which he should have been ten minutes earlier, 
reaching it out of breath, if not out of temper. 
From those who have waited for him he has 
stolen time quite as valuable as his own, and in 
consequence he finds them in no pleasant mood. 
That conference, thus belated, necessarily overlaps 
his subsequent duties, making him hurried and 
late throughout the day, until at night he is worn 
out, cross, nervous, tired, and feeling withal that it 
has been a very bad day. 

It is a great thing to be on time. It strengthens 
a man's position. It shows that he considers the 
matter in hand of suflScient importance to demand 
his earnest attention. It shows respect for his 
associates, and causes them to feel that he is un- 
willing to inconvenience them. It stamps him as 
a man of his word, for we know it requires some 
thought and planning to be always on time, and 
one who is never late at an appointment may be 
relied upon to keep his word in other matters. 

To be on time shows, in short, strength in a 
man. It should never be forgotten that being on 
time, and having time, are matters rather of care- 
ful planning and good management than of 
hurrying. 

It Is difficult for us to realize the importance of 



58 The Life That Now Is 

the wedding feast to those people who heard Jesus 
speak the parable of the Ten Virgins. In those 
days the festivities in connection with the celebra- 
tion of marriage were very great, and to be ex- 
cluded therefrom was a matter of no small concern. 
The cause of the tardiness of the foolish virgins 
was neglect to prepare themselves; hence their 
necessity of going to purchase oil for their lamps. 
So the lesson comes to us very directly that we 
must be prepared for the great things of life. We 
must be ever ready, for we know not the hour 
when we may be called upon. 

It is not only in things which we know will 
come that preparation is needful, but we must be 
prepared for unexpected contingencies. We must 
have such character and such breadth of thought 
as will enable us to rise superior to any emer- 
gency. We should get in the habit of never failing 
to meet any call of duty; thus shall we come to 
be known as dependable men. Reserve power is 
what we need, and what we can have if we will. 

Each should strive to be a little larger than the 
place which he fills and to be fitted for something 
higher when the call may come. Let us so pre- 
pare ourselves for the duties of life that we may 
never, at the eleventh hour, be compelled to go 
out and buy oil for our lamps, lest, during our 
absence, the door of opportunity may be shut. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Honesty 

Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. 

Never, in any language, were words spoken 
which more fully express that broad and unim- 
peachable honesty which should characterize the 
acts of every business man than do those words 
with which the Saviour answered the Herodians 
when they sought to trap him by questions con- 
cerning the tribute money. 

Every American boy loves to read the story of 
young Abraham Lincoln closing a country store 
and walking miles to return a few cents belonging 
to one of his customers. Every American man de- 
lights to honor the memory of a President who 
never deviated from the straight-forward path of 
which his early life gave promise. 

That ^* honesty is the best policy,'' when con- 
sidering policies from their relative commercial 
value, is not universally accepted. That father 
who counseled his son, '^Make money honestly if 
you can — but make money," has some descendants 
living in the business world of to-day. And yet, 
speaking generally, the business world may be 
termed honest, but its view of honesty is too 



59 



6o The Life That Now Is 

narrow. *^Thou shalt not steal'^ covers the busi- 
ness code, and he who has kept this command- 
ment is considered to have done well. Jesus says, 
*^ Render therefore unto Caesar the things which 
are Caesar's"; give to every man that which is his 
due. Do we even so ? 

The man who will steal or the man who will 
cheat is a fool. He must know that each time he 
takes, by unlawful means, so much as a penny he 
has made a scar upon the character which he is 
forming, for good or for evil, from day to day, 
and it is this character, the inner man, with which 
he must live throughout the years. It is this 
character which will make or mar his happiness 
in years to come, that will give or take away the 
highest success which his abilities fit him to attain. 

What is meant by giving every man his due ? 
We engage to work for a man. Do we give him 
the best thought and the best energy of which we 
are capable, or do we merely put in time ? Do we 
put soul and brain into our work, or do we let a 
higher paid man furnish the soul and the brain 
power ? A man hires us believing in our capabil- 
ity. Do we give to his service the best that is in 
us ? Elbert Hubbard has well said that in the ad- 
justment of wages every employee pays for super- 
vision, and that in so far as the employee rises 
above the necessity for supervision, in so far does 



Honesty 6i 

he attain to a position where the cost of super- 
vision may be added to his own income. 

Again, we hire a man to do certain work; he 
does it well, does it better than we have seen it 
done before. Do we show any especial apprecia- 
tion of his effort ? O, no; if we should he would 
want more money. So long as he is satisfied why 
should we care ? But one day a competitor no- 
tices the ability he displays in his work; he makes 
him a better offer, and then we suddenly double 
or triple his compensation. Have we been giving 
the man that which is his ? 

The obligation to give to every man his due is 
mutual as between employer and employee; it is 
mutual as between merchant and customer; it is, 
in general, mutual as between each man and his 
neighbor. 

The exercise, in all the affairs of life, of a strict 
— ^we may say a puritanical — honesty exerts upon 
the formation of character an influence which can- 
not be overlooked. It makes the word of a man 
as good as his bond; it makes a man exact, care- 
ful, and conservative in all his dealings. 

Does it pay ? Does it really bring dollars into 
one's pockets ? Nothing in all the influences 
which go toward the making of success so wins the 
appreciation of men as perfectly square dealing, 
as fair treatment in every detail. Every great 



62 The Life That Now Is 

mercantile establishment in the country prizes the 
confidence of its customers to such an extent that 
a penny overpaid is returned when the goods are 
delivered. There is nothing else which wins cus- 
tomers and friends like thorough, broad honesty; 
like rendering unto every man, in the fullest sense, 
that which is his. 



CHAPTER XV 

Fidelity 

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in 
much. 

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath 
made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due 
season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he 
cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he 
shall make him ruler over all his goods. 

His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faith- 
ful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will 
make thee ruler over many things. 

How the small things of life are neglected! If 
we could only be in great places, with great re- 
sponsibilities, how worthy we should be; but how 
hard do we find it in the small places, and in the 
small things, to exercise that fidelity which alone 
can fit us for the great things of life! 

Christ made it very clear that it is not the 
largeness of a man's position, nor the greatness of 
the things which surround him, that makes a 
faithful man, but that it is rather that indwelling 
fidelity to duty which springs from true character 
that makes a man faithful to a trust, whether it 
be large or small. 

There are few men who do not love a dog, and 
if we stop to analyze the feeling and to seek its 
cause we shall find that the one thing which com- 

^3 



64 The Life That Now Is 

mends the dog above other domestic animals is his 
unswerving fidelity. There is no drama which 
more deeply stirs the heart of a man of affairs 
than that of Damon and Pythias, because it 
strikes that high keynote of fidelity between man 
and man which dares even unto death. 

Christ has particularly emphasized the fidelity 
to a trust imposed where the trustee was placed 
entirely upon honor, and in the absence of the 
master "made ruler over his household/' We 
must not overlook the fact that, at the time these 
words were spoken, the condition of society was 
such that the imposition of a trust so great in- 
volved extreme faith in the servant, and presented 
to him great temptation and great opportunity to 
betray his master's interests. The reward is ac- 
cording to the service rendered. When his lord 
Cometh and findeth him so doing he will exalt him 
above every other servant and "make him ruler 
over all his goods.'' 

Fidelity includes loyalty to the business in which 
we are engaged. No man can be truly faithful to 
any business unless his heart be in it, nor to any 
business of which he cannot fully approve. We 
must feel that our business is worth while, that it 
is the greatest thing in the world, that it is a bless- 
ing to humanity, and that we are doing mankind 
good in our work from day to day. Then, and 



Fidelity 65 

then only, shall we rise to the highest achieve- 
ments which our position makes possible. 

We must be loyal to the name and honor of an 
employer. If we cannot consistently be so, it is bet- 
ter to get another employer. It is a constant grind 
for a man to endeavor to be loyal to an unworthy 
employer. Given a righteous employer, a man^s 
loyalty should be boundless. His aim should be 
to attain that state of mind which will enable him 
to reach the highest degree of success in his work. 

We must be loyal to the interests of customers, 
or of those with whom we have any dealings. The 
man who gains trade is the man who, when an 
article proves to be otherwise than as represented, 
frankly acknowledges his mistake and rectifies the 
error. 

The best promoters are those who make money 
for investors in the great enterprises which they 
promote. And he is but a novice in the school of 
success who will attempt to float an enterprise 
which will not eventually profit those who become 
interested therein. 

The world needs from men fidelity to God, 
fidelity to man, fidelity to self, and fidelity to the 
great principles and the great purposes of life. 

In this day when so many great corporations 
are employing vast armies of workers, when their 
interests have assumed such gigantic proportions 



66 The Life That Now Is 

that they require the services of thousands of men 
whose intellect and character are of the highest 
class, when the opportunities for advancement in 
the service of these great companies are unlimited, 
and when the compensation which they render for 
efficient service can scarcely be denominated salary 
because of its magnitude, the parable of the talents 
comes home to our business life with very vital 
force. 

The ambition of this life is to have power and 
to be a moving force in the affairs of men. **I 
will make thee ruler over many things,*' is the re- 
ward that comes only to one who is a good and 
faithful servant, and the term "'good and faith- 
ful,** like all the words of Christ, includes much 
more of meaning than we are wont to accord. It 
covers the scope of human effort, of business abil- 
ity, of unimpeachable integrity, of watchfulness for 
the employer's interests, and of unvarying loyalty 

thereto. 

To thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Rectitude 

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and 
broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many 
there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and 
narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be 
that find it. 

These words were uttered by the Saviour as 
his Sermon on the Mount was drawing near its 
close, and may be considered as summarizing in 
one brief metaphor the principles which govern in 
every man^s life; the great distinction between 
right and wrong which makes life a success or a 
failure at its close. 

The great temptation to the young man of to- 
day is in the example of some dashing young 
fellow who has plenty of money to spend, too often 
the accumulation of parents whose early frugality 
laid the foundation of later affluence. We become 
dazzled by the glitter of his profligacy — but the 
end is not yet. 

To know the world, to become wise in the ways 

of evil, is a common ambition. Henry Ward 

Beecher, speaking of this desire to know the other 

side of life, pertinently remarked that numerous 

explorers had ventured into the volcano's crater 

67 



68 The Life That Now Is 

but had not returned to report progress. Many 
have desired to know evil and have learned the 
anguish of perdition. Many have drunk the dregs 
of the cup, and but few John B. Goughs have risen 
as it were from a drunkard's grave to tell of its 
sorrows. 

There can be no mistake about righteousness 
being a narrow path, requiring diligence and at- 
tention all along the way. It is far easier to do 
the things which destroy us, the things which ruin 
our business, the things which impair the confi- 
dence of our patrons, the things which drive us 
into bankruptcy, than it is to do those things 
which are right and just and true. 

But it is nobler and braver to do the things 
which all men have not the strength to do. It is 
the doing of these things which will build us up, 
which will increase our trade, which will gain the 
confidence of our patrons, and which will secure 
from his superiors that commendation due a good 
and faithful servant. These things stamp us as 
men. 

There is no secret of success, and no road of 
ease to its attainment. The only way to get there 
is to observe the great principles of righteousness 
which underlie our life, the observance of which 
will bring success to each one. 

We must not suppose that any, knowing the 



Rectitude 69 

end of the broad path, would deliberately choose 
to travel therein. Every man desires to succeed, 
but every man has not in himself the v^ill and the 
perseverance to maintain the rectitude consistent 
with his ambition. It is so easy to be a good 
fellow, to take a drink now and then, or perhaps 
to violate the laws of success in a manner less 
flagrant but none the less vital. 

There is nothing in the Saviour's teaching to 
justify our conception of negative goodness. The 
righteousness of the gospel is always dual: first, 
the elimination of wrongdoing; second, the infu- 
sion of doing right, or perhaps better say the driv- 
ing out of evil by the presence of active and posi- 
tive good. 

We must remember that the walking of the nar- 
row path to success involves the doing of many 
things which, if left undone, could scarcely be 
called faults, and certainly not sins. If the farmer 
does not thoroughly cultivate his crops you can 
scarcely say that he has done wrong, or call him a 
sinner therefor; and yet his neighbor, by more 
thorough cultivation, may reap a much richer 
harvest. 

Let us take hold of the thought that our great- 
est lessons, in the affairs of men, are drawn from 
the operation of the laws of nature as seen in the 
field of the agriculturist and in the flower bed of 



70 The Life That Now Is 

the florist. Even as the tiny plants are the objects 
of care and watchfulness from day to day, so must 
our characters, in their development, be watched 
and guarded that they may come to maturity 
without fault or blemish. Thus will our lives give 
forth the buds and blossoms of faith, honesty, 
promptitude, fidelity, and all the business virtues 
which mean the winning of men's esteem, and 
ultimate success. 



CHAPTER XVII 
Perseverance 

He that endureth to the end shall be saved. 
No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, 
is fit for the kingdom of God. 

The best-known date in American history was 
made memorable by the perseverance of a sailor 
and a dreamer. Rejected by the senate of his na- 
tive city, discredited by the learned men who sat 
in the councils of kings, still persistently laying his 
plans before the various sovereigns of Europe, 
Christopher Columbus persisted until that event- 
ful day when his extremity compelled him to 
knock at the door of a monastery to ask bread 
and water for his son; and here, still on fire with 
his project, he disclosed it to a cleric whose in- 
fluence with Isabella opened the way to his ulti- 
mate success. 

Perseverance is the most rare of all business 
virtues. We are wont to make great resolutions 
and great starts, but if things do not come our 
way in what we consider a reasonable time we 
give up and go about something else. True suc- 
cess is only to him who endures to the very end. 
We are in the habit of modifying our purposes and 
our ideals to get around the mountains instead of 
going over them. 

7x 



72 The Life That Now Is 

Perseverance is continuous and protracted de- 
termination. If a thing is worth starting to do, it 
is worth persisting in until accomplished, even 
though it require a determination extending over 
years to avoid forsaking a great purpose. Every 
great thing which has come to mankind has come 
as the result of the perseverance of some great soul 
possessed of faith and a purpose. 

When, in 1866, the second expedition of the 
Great Eastern passed into history, and Europe 
and America joined hands as the lightning flashes 
passed from continent to continent under the 
Atlantic waters, Cyrus W. Field became a popular 
hero, receiving a congressional gold medal and be- 
ing decorated by numerous foreign powers. But 
he began his great purpose in 1854; he crossed the 
ocean fifty times and spent twelve years in the 
prime of life to give to the world the first Atlantic 
cable. 

When Hernando Cortes burned his ships off the 
coast of Mexico he realized the weakness of human 
nature and the lack of that perseverance which 
encountering obstacles would develop in his fol- 
lowers; he wished to avoid the possibility of for- 
saking his undertaking before it had been accom- 
plished, and the government of Montezuma fell 
before his reckless ambition. 

Perseverance, like many other business virtues. 



Perseverance 73 

is susceptible of development, and may become a 
habit of life. Russell Sage said that the great key 
to success was going right ahead unruffled by vic- 
tory and undismayed by defeat. If in every daily 
duty we persevere to the end of the task, never 
forsaking it when we strike a hard place, but 
rather redoubling our energy, and saying to our- 
selves that we will stick to it for the very purpose 
of gaining the habit of perseverance, we shall find 
this habit growing upon us from day to day until 
we shall be able to carry to completion tasks of 
which we thought ourselves incapable, and in the 
end we shall acquire the power to persevere in the 
great purposes of life. 

Christ says that no man who has put his hand 
to the plow and who looks back is fit for the king- 
dom. The looking back is the beginning of the 
fault and is the cause of failure. We must con- 
stantly look forward toward the object which we 
desire to attain. The moment we allow our affec- 
tions to return to the things we have left behind, 
that moment do we weaken the position which we 
have thus far attained. We become dissatisfied, 
like the children of Israel who, revolting at the 
bread of heaven, clamored for the food of the 
Egyptians; and we are indeed fortunate if, in our 
vacillation, we become not as statuesque as did 
Lot's wife, who, hesitating between the promise of 



74 The Life That Now Is 

the future and the desire for the past, was forever 
deprived of both. 

Whenever this looking back begins our will 
wavers from the purpose which we have in view, 
and we must not expect, in this age of keen com- 
petition, that we shall accomplish anything in the 
business world with our desires vacillating be- 
tween the prize which lies ahead and the com- 
forts which appear to lie in defeat. Looking back 
is sure to result in failure, and ultimately in for- 
saking the object which we had hoped to attain. 
The way may be long and difficult, but the prize 
is to him who persists. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Alertness 

Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. 

We must not think that it is unnecessary for us 
to be awake and watchful of our own interests 
among the business men of this age. The millen- 
nium has not yet come, and until it shall arrive 
there will be those who would strip us of our rai- 
ment, and wound us, and depart, leaving us half 
dead, even as they did that certain man who went 
down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and to whose 
wants the Good Samaritan ministered. 

Neither must we think it necessary to watch our 
own interests against this class only. In this day 
the strife for excellence is so great in every field 
that competition is more keen than ever before in 
the history of the world, and the man whose ef- 
forts do not savor of real merit cannot hope for 
recognition. The day of mediocrity has passed. 
Men must excel in their several lines if they would 
attain to any high success. Emerson has well 
said that to the door of him who excels, whether 
by writing a better book than his neighbor or by 
making a better mouse trap, the world will make 
a beaten path though his dwelling be in the desert. 

The acme of alertness is displayed on the floor 



75 



76 The Life That Now Is 

of the Stock Exchange, where a fortune is often 
made by him who, with the cool head and keen 
perception of a skillful physician, keeps his finger 
on the market's pulse and profits by his early 
knowledge of its heart-beats, while others wait to 
trade on its strength or weakness as shown, a few 
seconds later, by its visible symptoms. 

It is, however, worth our while to note par- 
ticularly the manner in which the Saviour quali- 
fies his injunction to alertness. He admonishes us 
to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. 
Consider the great wisdom in this qualification, 
and the diflficulty of fulfilling it at all times. To 
be always keen and watchful, and yet not to offend 
any — truly he who can do this in the everyday 
affairs of life is great, and will attain great success. 

There are men in our large banks whose busi- 
ness it is to watch the rates of exchange in the 
markets of the world, and to transfer balances 
from Paris to Berlin, or Berlin to London, as the 
varying rates may make an eighth or a tenth of 
one per cent. This is alertness. But in the same 
banks there are men whose business it is to look 
after the wants of customers, to treat them as 
friends; in short, to manage the manners of the 
bank, while the first look after its matters. 

To be watchful is good; to treat each one with 
consideration is well; to do both is to succeed. 



CHAPTER XIX 
Cheerfulness 

Son, be of good cheer. 

In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer. 

To the man sick of the palsy Jesus said, *'Son, 
be of good cheer/^ To his disciples he said, " In 
the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of 
good cheer.^' Nothing is clearer than that he who 
continually wears a long face has failed to grasp 
the gospel spirit. We have found a good many 
useful things in Solomon's proverbs, but perhaps 
nothing more pertinent to modern life than "A 
merry heart doeth good like a medicine.'^ The 
peculiar thing about a merry heart is its dual 
effectiveness. It cures its owner of his malady, 
and it drives disease from the lives of all with 
whom he associates. 

The first time the writer heard T, DeWitt 
Talmage lecture he spoke of the sunny side of 
life, beginning his address with the statement that 
if we left it to Darwinians to tell from whence we 
came, and to theologians to tell whither we go, the 
fact remains for our consideration that we are 
here. That is the point we must grasp. God put 
us in this world, and he meant us to live lives 
full of sunshine and happiness. He meant our 
earthly lives to have so much of paradise in them 

77 



78 The Life That Now Is 

that we shall not be homesick when we get to 
heaven. 

The Master taught that cheerfulness which 
springs from a cheerful heart — a heart that is 
right with God, right toward men, and right with 
self. Such a heart has no room for the morbid 
joy of self-imposed unhappiness. From such a 
heart springs cheerfulness even as the water shoots 
upward from the fountain. From such a heart 
radiate warmth and light to bless mankind. From 
such a heart goes forth that brightness of life 
which attracts men. 

We say, "Laugh and the world laughs with you; 
weep, and you weep alone/' and we speak truly. 
The world, especially the business world, has no 
place for a man who is gloomy, morose, and sad. 
A little bootblack in San Francisco, looking 
through the ruins for his box and brushes, ex- 
pressed a very sound and sensible philosophy when 
he said, "The only way to do is to take things 
just as they come; do the best you can and act as 
if you was glad.'* 

Act as though you were glad! That is the key- 
note to the cheerfulness which is a business winner. 
Of course, we cannot always be glad. Things 
come into our lives which cause pain, but the 
business world does not care anything about our 
troubles; indeed, men think less of us if we even 



Cheerfulness 79 

refer to them. They want to do business with 
men who are happy, kind, and cheerful. 

It has been said that the smile on the face is 
the greatest factor in modern business, and we 
may qualify this statement only by changing it to 
the smile from the heart. The smile, to be of 
real value, must spring from a genuine love of 
mankind which dwells within. The counterfeit, 
which rests only on the features, may pass now 
and then, but it is easily detected, and we are 
always doubtful of the man who wears the coun- 
terfeit smile. We must cultivate the smile in the 
soul, and it will then show on the outside without 
any particular attention on our part. 

But to smile when overtaken by real adversity 
requires a very high development of character. 

It is easy enough to be pleasant 
When life flows along like a song, 

But the man worth while 

Is the man who will smile 
When ev'rything goes dead wrong. 

To endeavor to escape tribulation in this life is 
futile; it comes to all with the years, but it is en- 
tirely within our power to so build our character 
that we shall sorrow not as those who have no 
hope, and to have such a well of cheerfulness 
springing up within us that it can never be stopped 
by adverse circumstances. Trouble may come 
from without, but the real sunshine of life can 
come only from within. 



CHAPTER XX 

Humility 

The servant is not greater than his lord. 
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he 
that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 

In this day of self-advertising, when the name 
and the Hkeness of a great merchant are known 
In many lands, it would seem that humility is but 
a weak member in the building of success. And 
yet do we not find on close association with those 
who stand before the world as great and master- 
ful men that they are really humble at heart ? Do 
we not find that the problems of life which they 
have solved, and the battles they have won, have 
taught them that man is dependent upon his fel- 
low creatures, and that he is dependent upon 
a higher power than himself? The advertising 
which appears as self-glorification is but a method 
of publicity, a means to an end, and that end is 
the exploitation of the goods for which the name 
stands; the making known to the world of the 
merchandise with which the man's personality Is 
identified. 

It is difiicult for us to assimilate the truth that 
our praise should come from another, and not 

from our own mouth. We have a fear that he 

80 



Humility 8i 

who should praise us will be too busy to take note 
of our merits or too disinterested to mention them. 
Of this we need have no fear. The measure of 
success IS merit rather than self-glorification. The 
praise of another bears the stamp of truth which 
is ever lacking in the praise of self. 

Nor must we consider self-praise as pertaining 
only to word of mouth. Our every act, as we 
meet men, speaks of vanity or humility. A man's 
inmost character, the thought of his heart in refer- 
ence to himself, is patent to everyone whom he 
meets. We spend so much time in thinking of 
self that the opinion which we hold of ourselves 
molds our every act, fashions our walk, governs 
the manner in which we salute a man on the 
street and the way we receive him when he comes 
to our place of business. We cannot escape it; 
the vain man cannot conceal his pride. 

Everything in life that is worth while requires 
time. To know how to wait is in itself a great 
virtue. If we would that the world should ulti- 
mately appreciate our abilities we must with pa- 
tience wait for that recognition which is our due, 
striving always to put real merit into each under- 
taking, that men may take note of us that we do 
things well. The slower path is the surer one. 

There is a great desire to appear to be some- 
thing; a failure to appreciate the obligation to be. 



82 The Life That Now Is 

It IS a very easy matter for one to acquire those 
outward forms of manhood which are but the 
exemplification of business abihty and virtue, and 
these outward forms may for a time pass for the 
real article. To the superficial observer they may 
indicate that there is a real man within; but the 
time will come in each life, all too soon, when 
circumstances will test the man, and if he be not 
firmly grounded in right principles, from which 
these outward forms spring as naturally as the 
blossom from the lily, he will fail to make good. 

The crying need of the time is genuineness 
rather than imitation. Too many are cloaked, 
like the confidence man, in the apparel and the 
manners of a gentleman, while the heart is at war 
with the things which count for ultimate success. 

To his personal exaltation Julius Caesar sacri- 
ficed much in the lives and fortunes of other men, 
and because he thus exalted himself Brutus, his 
one-time friend, became a conspirator. 

Every man would be a king. Every man has a 
desire to reach the highest sphere of action. Every 
man of enterprise desires to push forward to take 
that higher place for which he deems himself 
fitted. We bend our energies rather to pushing 
others aside than to pushing ourselves forward. 
We expend our strength in trying to let others 
know what great things we might do if we had the 



Humility 83 

opportunity, rather than in building up within 
ourselves the great possibilities of our nature. 

That the servant is not above his lord is the 
teaching which Christ left for us when he, the 
great Master of mankind, stooped to perform the 
lowly service of washing the disciples* feet, stating 
definitely that in doing this he was leaving an ex- 
ample of humble service to men. 

The question comes to us. Who is a servant, 
and whom should we serve ? Are we not servants 
to the customers from each of whom we derive a 
revenue which, taken in the aggregate, makes up 
the income from the business in which we are en- 
gaged ? Is not the executive head of a great cor- 
poration the servant of those whose custom makes 
the corporation what it is ? Is not the holder of 
public office the servant of the lowliest taxpayer ? 

When we reach a position where we are paid a 
large sum in profits, in commission, or in salary, 
because of the magnitude of the business in which 
we are engaged, because the business is affected by 
the needs of a large number of people, do we not 
forget that we are the servants of those who are 
really the means of our support ? Do we not 
overlook the very source from which we derive 
honor and wealth, and do we not treat the indi- 
vidual members of the multitude as though we had 
risen immeasurably above them ? One of the 



84 The Life That Now Is 

most successful merchants, a German who rose 
from poverty to affluence in retail merchandising, 
had as his motto, "You must blacken your cus- 
tomer's boots/* 

When, on March 4, 1801, Thomas JeflFerson 
was to be inaugurated as the third President of the 
United States he disdained the pomp and splendor 
incident to royal rulers. Unattended by so much 
as a single servant, he rode to the capitol on 
horseback, dismounted, tied his horse to the fence, 
took the oath of the high office to which he had 
been elected, and became the great apostle of 
democracy. 

Christ has compared advancement in life to the 
places of honor at a wedding feast, and has cau- 
tioned us, when we are bidden, not to sit down 
in the highest room, lest a more honorable man be 
bidden and the host come with that man and com- 
mand that we give him place, when we shall begin 
with shame to take the lowest room; but rather to 
take a humble place, that he who bade us may 
recognize our just deserts and say unto us, "Friend, 
go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the 
presence of them that sit at meat with thee.'' Fol- 
lowing this lesson Christ has made that broad state- 
ment which is amply proven by the history of men : 
"For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; 
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." 



CHAPTER XXI 

NONRESISTANCE 

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil. 

We fight too much with the evil in others; we 
fight too much with the evil in ourselves. From 
the time when we first learned of the doctrine of 
nonresistance as taught by Christ we have con- 
sidered it as something totally incompatible with 
the spirit of our age, and something especially un- 
fitted for business. We admire the fighting men 
of all time, we love to read of wars and rumors 
of wars; we think that if a man follows the teach- 
ing of Christ in this regard he must become a 
weakling, unable to cope with business adversaries. 

Our point of view is very like that of the simple 
one who, when admonished to follow the advice of 
Proverbs, "If thine enemy be hungry, give him 
bread to eat; if he be thirsty, give him water to 
drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his 
head,'' replied in his rage, " Good ! Good ! I'll do 
it, I want to burn his brains out!" 

That the battle is not to the strong alone has 
been exemplified in our own time when we have 
seen a numerically weak nation prevail in its con- 
test with a mighty power. The people of Japan 

85 



86 The Life That Now Is 

had been taught from time immemorial a system 
of physical defense which involved overcoming not 
by strength and resistance, but rather a vanquish- 
ing of the enemy by a clever withdrawal of attack, 
virtually making the adversary destroy himself by 
the force of his own onslaught. The principles of 
self-defense, so well known to the Japanese in 
personal combat, have influenced their national 
life until they have been enabled to apply them in 
a higher sense to the strategy of war, accomplish- 
ing victories which have astonished the civilized 
world. 

The secret of power over evil is in the opposi- 
tion of good against evil. When we have a difficult 
customer to deal with, or a troublesome negotia- 
tion with men who array the force of their evil 
nature against us, fighting, wrangling, and con- 
tention are futile; the array of evil against evil can 
avail nothing. It is then, in the thickest of the 
fight, that we should remember that evil can be 
overcome only with good; it is then that we should 
marshal to our aid all the reserve power of charac- 
ter, all the good that is in us, and so arraying the 
good against the evil we shall prevail against it. 
To do a man good, and not evil, is the shortest 
and surest way to conquer him. 

Not only in fighting evil in others, but even 
more so in fighting the evil in ourselves, is it per- 



NONRESISTANCE 87 

tinent to consider that the evil is overcome only 
by good. If v^e allow our attention to be dis- 
tinctly drawn to the evil within us, in an effort to 
overcome it, we shall ever be thinking of that evil, 
and even if we should succeed in eradicating it, 
only negative goodness would result. 

Positive goodness is what we need; that good- 
ness of life and action which was so persistently 
taught by the Saviour; that goodness which blesses 
its owner, blesses mankind, accomplishes results, 
and brings success. If, instead of centering our 
attention upon the uprooting of evil, we direct the 
same attention, and devote the same effort, to the 
introduction of right principles into our nature, we 
shall find that these right principles will crowd out 
the evil, even as light dispels darkness, and we 
shall not have a vacuum where the evil has been, 
but our whole being will be full of light. Evil 
cannot maintain a dwelling where an abundance of 
right principles prevails. 



CHAPTER XXII 

Justice 

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and 
ye shall not be condemned : forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. 

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's 
eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous 
judgment. 

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed 
down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give 
into your bosom. 

From the words of Christ we can draw no other 
inference than that we shall receive from men 
what we give to men. How ready we are to judge 
another! How ready we are to assign false mo- 
tives for another^s acts ! How ready we are to con- 
demn without trial! If we turn our thoughts in- 
ward how many things we shall find which would 
subject us to criticism! How many acts com- 
mitted thoughtlessly in each day or each week 
might seem to warrant the imputation of motives 
which would do us the greatest injustice! 

Forgiveness carries with it a promise of positive 
reward: ^*Ye shall be forgiven/' When John 
Wesley was in Georgia he accidentally came upon 
Governor Oglethorpe in great rage at a servant 
caught pilfering from his wine cellar. Wesley 



Justice 89 

pleaded that the malefactor be given another 
chance, but the governor replied, ^^I never forgive/' 

^^Then, sir/' ansv^ered Wesley, "I hope you 
never sin/' 

The lesson of the mote in the brother's eye and 
the beam in the eye of the self-appointed judge is 
a great arraignment of mankind because it is so 
true to life. 

We neglect no opportunity to shield ourselves, 
or to blame on some one else the mistakes which 
occur. It has been said that the power to confess 
a fault is a mark of greatness, but it must be ac- 
knowledged that it is rarely considered good busi- 
ness. The average business man believes in de- 
fending his own course of action, and ever holding 
out to his associates a sense of his own infallibility. 
In a race which is universally fallible by reason of 
its finite limitations it is well for each one to re- 
member, before hastily criticising another, that he 
may himself be inadvertently guilty of greater 
wrongdoing. He did well who so quaintly said 
that there is so much good in the worst of us, and 
so much bad in the best of us, that it doesn't pay 
for any of us to find fault with the rest of us. 

Judging according to appearance is the common 
practice of our time, and it is a fruitful source of 
business failure. There are few men who can 
look beyond a man's clothes, beyond his visible 



90 The Life That Now Is 

manners and expressions, and find the man him- 
self. The man who can do this becomes a great 
judge of human nature, becomes a great salesman, 
a successful credit man, or an employer who sur- 
rounds himself with able and faithful servants. It 
is to this ability to judge men rightly, rather than 
from appearance, that Andrew Carnegie and other 
great captains of industry owe their success. 

The Jews were criticising Christ for doing a 
good work on the Sabbath day, and he pointed 
out to them that they did not hesitate to perform 
ceremonial duties on the day of rest, while they 
found fault with him for performing a much 
greater and a much better work. So it is that we 
often find in one who transgresses some of the 
outward forms of the time, which we have come to 
regard as an index to the man, a great and true 
heart which is doing larger things, and is capable 
of more faithful life, than one who makes his out- 
ward life but a false cloak for unrighteous prin- 
ciples dwelling within. 

We must not overlook the fact that there is 
a certain subtle feeling among business associates 
which permits men to know, irrespective of our 
words, what estimate we have placed upon their 
character; and we get from a man about what we 
expect. If we judge a man harshly we shall re- 
ceive treatment from him in accord with that 



Justice 91 

judgment. If we place trust in a man he feels 
that he has been honored and that life itself is 
worth less to him than is the self-respect incident 
to the maintenance of that trust. 

How many give good measure, pressed down, 
shaken together, and running over, in all of our 
transactions ? O, yes, we keep our contracts; we 
pay our debts; we fulfill our promises; and we 
have done well. Christ taught this, and some- 
thing more than this. He taught that as we give 
fully unto men, whether of merchandise, of time, 
or of eflTort, so shall we receive fully from men the 
things which they have to give in return. It is 
doubtful if anyone who has spent years in the 
business world will deny that this is true. 

Do you not, when about to make any extensive 
purchases, go to that store which has established a 
reputation for fair dealing, which has never been 
known to misrepresent an article, whose clerks are 
not permitted to pass over its counters a cheap 
imitation without expressly telling the customer 
what he is getting? Do you not go to such a 
store, even though its prices be a little higher, 
rather than to a bargain store where you feel that 
you must critically examine each article purchased 
to be certain that you get the worth of your money ? 

In the matter of effort, whether our work be for 
salary or for otherwise determined compensation, 



92 The Life That Now Is 

the thought should ever be how much we can do 
for the money received, rather than how much 
money we can get for the work performed. When 
thus considered, all work becomes high and holy; 
there is something approaching sacredness about 
the humblest vocation when followed in this spirit. 
And not only is the work thus raised to a higher 
plane, but it pays! It brings to the employee fa- 
vorable consideration from his employer; it brings 
to the merchant favorable mention in the com- 
munity; it brings to the worker in any line favor- 
able notice from those by whom he is employed 
and from those whose work he hopes to secure. It 
IS not so much the amount of time we put in, but 
the amount of effort we put into the time. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
Liberality 

Give to him that asketh thee. 

It is rather a difficult matter to convince the 
average hard-headed business man that Hberality 
has much to do with his success; yet it is one of 
the vital principles of right living, and successful 
business is nothing other than the application, in 
a certain field of effort, of the great principles 
which underlie and govern all human action. 
Unpleasant as it may seem, the fact is that each 
one is too stingy toward others. To take a man 
richer than oneself out to lunch, to give him a 
cigar, or perchance treat him to a drink, is not 
liberality; it is foolishness. Liberality springs 
from a motive entirely distinct. 

There is liberality in money, liberality in effort, 
liberality in time; there is liberality toward those 
who ask and deserve, there is liberality toward an 
employer, there is liberality toward an employee, 
there is liberality toward customers. Liberality is 
a very broad subject, capable of indefinite am- 
plification. 

Liberality is a virtue denoting a line of action 
springing from a heartfelt desire to give of what- 
ever we have for the benefit of mankind. When 

93 



94 The Life That Now Is 

Peter beheld the cripple begging alms at the tem- 
ple gate he said, ^'Silver and gold have I none; 
but such as I have give I thee/' And then he gave 
to that poor mendicant the one thing which was of 
more value to him than a king's ransom, the one 
thing for which he dared not even hope, as he 
said, ^^In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth 
rise up and walk." That is the truest liberality 
which prompts us to give of what we have the 
things which men most need. 

Some years ago George Harvey, commenting 
upon the magnificent homes and spacious grounds 
of certain American captains of industry, observed 
that the interest of contemplating these palatial 
appointments lay less in a consideration of their 
cost than in the thought that their owners had 
rendered to the world service which called for re- 
muneration so munificent. Giving to the world 
the best that is in us is the truest liberality. 

Taking first the matter of liberality in money, 
our giving to those who ask and deserve is usually 
of a niggardly sort, calculated less to benefit the 
recipient than to satisfy our own conscience. If we 
had at heart the good of society, which in the end 
is every man's individual welfare, we should give 
more, or we should give nothing. If we give to 
him that asks such benefits as will start him upon 
a course of right living, we have done well; if we 



Liberality 95 

give a pittance, we encourage him in the life of a 
beggar. 

A while ago we knew a man who, when a beg- 
gar came to his office and asked for the price of a 
meal, said, ^^No, if you want a drink of whisky I 
will give you a quarter/' The beggar departed, 
but returned in about ten minutes, saying rather 
sheepishly, ^^ Really, I am thirsty/' The man gave 
him the promised quarter, and however greatly we 
deprecate his cynicism and disapprove of his ideas 
of temperance, we must admit that he gave with a 
sincerity which is sometimes lacking in our chari- 
ties; that he investigated the asker's desires, and 
that he compelled the beggar to be truthful. 

We have also liberality in money matters to- 
ward those who are dependent upon our employ- 
ment for their support. We read in government 
statistics that the price of commodities is advancing 
without corresponding increase in wages. The la- 
borer is worthy of his hire, not merely in so many 
dollars, but in so much purchasing power. He 
and his family must live, and if we would have 
efficient service, if we would avoid strikes and all 
the evils of discontent among the workers, we must 
be liberal. One of the secrets of Rockefeller's 
success lies in the fact that it has ever been his pol- 
icy to pay wages a shade above the market price. 

A faithful workman had on his home a three- 



96 The Life That Now Is 

hundred-dollar mortgage which was about to be 
foreclosed, and which so distressed him that he 
could not give proper attention to his duties; his 
employer lifted the mortgage and allowed the man 
to pay him in small installments from his monthly 
wages. It need hardly be added that the ultimate 
result was profitable to the employer. 

There is liberality of eflFort and liberality of 
time. We know that these pay. We know that 
the man who puts into the hours of business only 
so much effort as will enable him to draw his pay 
is not on the list for an increased salary. We know 
that he who comes in at morn like a man going 
to jail, who keeps one eye on the clock, and who 
leaves on the stroke of the hour like a boy released 
from an irksome task, will not rapidly advance. 

There is, likewise, liberality toward customers, 
and by the word "customers'" we do not mean to 
include merely those who come to a place of busi- 
ness to buy, or those to whom one may go to sell, 
but all those with whom one seeks to do business 
to his own profit. A liberal policy toward all 
such, in regard to monetary matters and intrinsic 
values, in regard to effort for their benefit, in re- 
gard to time for giving their wants and their com- 
plaints attention, and in regard to courteous treat- 
ment, is a most potent factor in achieving success 
in any business. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Kindness 

Do good to them that hate you. 

This is the supreme test of whether a man is 
his own master, whether he is willing to subject 
the passions to reason, whether he is willing to 
sacrifice self to success. We know that it is our 
duty to be kind, we know that it pays; and yet we 
say we cannot. When the Continental army was 
quartered at Valley Forge, General Washington, 
taking a morning walk, came across a corporal 
who had a squad of men moving some heavy logs. 
One young fellow, not strong enough to move his 
log, was being berated by the petty officer, when 
the general, with his uniform concealed by his 
overcoat, stepped up and assisted the young soldier 
at his task. Then turning to the corporal he un- 
buttoned his coat, displaying his rank, and said, 
"When a task is too hard for your men send for 
me. 

''General Washington was not too great to be 
kind'^ is the stereotyped moral to this story, but 
the moral which has always seemed to me more 
appropriate would read, '' George Washington was 
great enough to be kind/* It takes a really great 



97 



98 The Life That Now Is 

soul to be truly kind, and consistent kindness is 
the first mark of greatness. Only the truly great 
mind can conceive of the happiness of humanity 
as the ultimate aim of life and, so conceiving, can 
achieve large success by conquering the little self- 
ishnesses of life v^hich distract the attention of the 
multitude and deter us from reaching the really 
high places of life. 

How different is the atmosphere in a business 
establishment which is ruled by kindness from 
that in one where the overseer's whip is always in 
evidence! How different is the character of the 
service rendered; how different the treatment 
accorded to patrons; how different the results 
attained ! 

What if one makes a mistake ? What if an 
accident occurs which may cause the house a loss ? 
Does not the suffering of a conscientious employee 
over the fault of which he has inadvertently been 
guilty place him sufficiently upon guard to prevent 
a recurrence ? Is it not better to allow him to re- 
sume his work without reproof than to ruin his 
work for the day, and lose the results which he 
might otherwise accomplish ? Harsh speech will 
only aggravate his discomfort, and cannot regain 
that which has been lost. A railroad employee 
made a mistake in his orders, and a wreck was 
narrowly averted. His superior said, " We will not 



Kindness 99 

discharge him; this experience has taught him a 
lesson and he will become a valuable man/' 

The humble employee scarcely realizes how 
great is the influence upon the general efficiency of 
the institution which may be exerted by his kind- 
ness to fellow workers. One man of kind speech 
and thought revolutionizes the working force of an 
oflSce where unkindness has held sway; one man of 
unkind speech spreads discord through the entire 
force. 

But the Saviour teaches that we shall be kind to 
them that hate us. This is hard, but it pays. 
There is not in all the world a man whose heart 
may not be won by consistent and continued kind- 
ness. So difficult may it be for one to acknowledge 
that he is susceptible to the influence of kindness 
that he will never admit its eff^ect, but the man who 
IS kind to those who have shown him unkindness 
will find their trade coming his way, and when he 
needs friends, he will find them his most devoted 
ones. 

The great rush and hurry with which we go 
about our undertakings has robbed our lives of 
those little acts of kindness and those little words 
of kindness which make life joyous, and which 
bring into the work of the day that which gives 
life and spirit to the worker. It pays to take 
time to be kind. 



TOO The Life That Now Is 

Let us not forget the kindness due to those at 
home. How often when the day's work is ended 
do we go home, the cares of the day hanging heavy 
upon us, unable to free ourselves from the vexa- 
tions incident to trade and careless of the mood in 
which we greet those whose Hfe is so largely what 
we make it! 

Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 

Conies a pause in the day's occupations. 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

How little do we remember the kindness which 
is part of the business of a father and a husband! 
How shall we expect, when we forget or neglect the 
kindness which is our duty in the home, that we 
can cultivate that cheerful spirit which will win for 
us the esteem of men ? 



CHAPTER XXV 
Harmony 

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to deso- 
lation. 

When Alexander Selkirk said, *^I am monarch 
of all I survey; my right there is none to dispute/' 
he probably did not feel the need of harmony, but 
so long as we associate with human beings har- 
mony is a first requisite to success in any under- 
taking. 

There can be no successful business without 
harmony. How truly is the saying of Christ ex- 
emplified in the many partnerships in which there 
is no harmony, and which ultimately result in 
former partners becoming bitter enemies ! Strange 
indeed is it that men whose interests are mutual 
cannot realize that each loses money when they do 
not work harmoniously. 

There must be harmony of desire, harmony of 
effort, and harmony of spirit: harmony of desire, 
because the end sought must be the same, or the 
greatest result cannot be attained by the effort of 
coworkers; harmony of effort, because the lines laid 
to accomplish a desired end must be harmonious 
lest the work of one but negatives the other's en- 
deavor; harmony of spirit, by which is meant an 



102 The Life That Now Is 

elimination of those little frictions of life which 
draw the attention from the great end to be at- 
tained, and which vex the worker and weaken the 
aim in any field of human effort. It is harmony of 
spirit which, in the human mechanism, oils the 
bearings and makes the machinery run smoothly. 

There is a great thought in relation to business 
harmony which we are liable to overlook, and that 
is the harmony of interest which should exist be- 
tween buyer and seller. He who sells to a cus- 
tomer without this thought of the buyer's best 
interest, and who thinks only of the profit which 
he is himself making from the sale, can never 
hope to build up a large list of constant and satis- 
fied customers. 

This mutual interest in trade is more and more 
recognized each year, and the result is that the 
salesmen of the best houses are instructed to make 
satisfied customers, and to treat their customers 
with such consideration that the buyer will be glad 
to see them when they come again. The great 
mail order houses place the highest salaried cor- 
respondents in the departments having to deal with 
complaints. 

Then there is that harmony between competing 
houses which, in quite recent years, was an un- 
known thing in commerce. It is now by no means 
uncommon for houses handling similar lines of 



Harmony 103 

goods to make joint displays in order that buyers 
going to market may have an opportunity to in- 
spect the several lines in one place without the 
annoyance and expense of traveling about to each 
separate establishment. We recently sav7 an ex- 
hibit of six different manufacturers, and, while 
signs showed what houses were exhibiting, there 
was nothing to distinguish the goods of one from 
those of another, the object being to increase the 
consuming demand by educating the public to the 
general utility of the product. Indeed, so far has 
this principle already been reduced to practice that 
the representatives of different houses, handling 
almost identical merchandise, frequently go in 
company upon trips to visit the trade. A true story 
is told of one of these business excursions from 
which one member was called home by serious 
illness in his family. Instead of taking his samples 
with him he left them with his associates, request- 
ing that they be opened and exhibited whenever 
the samples of the other houses were shown. The 
honorable manner in which this request was 
treated was evidenced by the very considerable 
orders which he received when the party of travel- 
ers returned. 

When such harmony as this is thought to be 
good business by the larger concerns of the coun- 
try, we may surely take heart and say that a better 



104 The Life That Now Is 

day is dawning; we may surely say that in our 
daily work, and in our daily business, we will 
endeavor to so harmonize ourselves with all with 
whom we come in contact that we may go on, 
unruffled by petty strife, to achieve the highest 
success of which we are capable. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

The Golden Rule 

As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them 
likewise. 

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to them. 

Had Androclus lived in selfish luxury we should 
not have heard his name. But because he was a 
Roman slave, and because the injustices attendant 
upon his servitude drove him, in his flight, to take 
refuge in the African cave, he became sympathetic 
with all suflFering. And yet, even then, had he 
through cowardice or prejudice refused to help the 
wounded lion his career had ended in the cave. 
But he regarded the suffering of man's natural 
enemy, the king of beasts, and, fearless of his own 
destruction, he hastened to withdraw the thorn 
from the lion's foot and to bind up the wound with 
a piece torn from his own poor garment. Thus, 
befriending an unknown beast, all unwittingly did 
he lay the foundation for that hour of miraculous 
triumph when the bloodthirsty throng of Rome 
should gaze on the wondrous spectacle of a fero- 
cious and half-starved lion bounding from its cage 
to destroy, for the spectators' delectation, the slave 
who had been condemned to be its prey — but halt- 

los 



io6 The Life That Now Is 

ing, crouching meekly before its victim, and licking 
the hand of the friend upon whom it would not 
feed! 

So surely as the corn of wheat dropped into the 
fertile soil and watered by the dew of heaven 
brings forth a hundredfold, so surely does the kind 
act dropped into the great heart of humanity and 
watered by the providence of God return, in- 
creased a hundredfold, to bless its giver in this 
present life. 

When the lawyer asked which is the great com- 
mandment in the law, the Saviour answered that 
the first and great commandment is to love God, 
and added, ^^The second is like unto it, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself/* The Golden 
Rule is an admonition to put into practice this love 
of neighbor equal to love of self. 

When, at Appomattox, General Grant refused 
to take the sword from so brave an officer as Robert 
E. Lee, he took a long step toward the reconstruc- 
tion of the South and the establishment of a united 
people. 

The principle which stands behind the Golden 
Rule lies at the foundation of all business, because 
it affects that confidence without which there can 
be no satisfactory commercial relations between 
nations nor between individuals. We have known 
men with whom we would have no business deal- 



The Golden Rule 107 

ings, even though the opportunity for profit in a 
particular dealing with them might appear great, 
merely because we recognized that their character 
was directly opposed to the Golden Rule, and we 
well knew if we formed the habit of dealing with 
them it would be only a matter of time until their 
rule of ^Moing others and doing it first ^^ would be 
applied to us. 

The practice of the Golden Rule pays because 
it secures for us the lasting friendship of those 
otherwise most unapproachable. It brings even 
the most suspicious man to appreciate that we 
accord him treatment which is just and fair, and, 
appreciating such treatment, he comes to do busi- 
ness with us again. More than this, even in 
dealing with one who observes not the command to 
love his neighbor, the spirit of fairness prompts 
him, in dealing with one whose life is ordered by 
the Golden Rule, to a kindness which it is not his 
custom to employ in his dealings with mankind. 
Thus do we accomplish a threefold purpose. We 
gain a permanent customer, we gain for ourselves 
fair treatment from him, and we implant in his 
heart that faith in humanity which beautifies his 
own life and gives forth its blossoms to bless the 
lives of other men. 

The Golden Rule is the greatest business builder 
known to the world, and we need not fear ultimate 



io8 The Life That Now Is 

failure if we continually practice it in all our busi- 
ness dealings. Of course, it cannot be said that a 
man may not lose something in a particular trans- 
action by failing to take advantage of the opening 
which he sees to get the better of the other man, 
but if he once takes such an unfair advantage he 
will, in the end, lose money thereby. He will lose 
that man's friendship; he will lose his own reputa- 
tion; and he starts the formation of a habit 
which will make it easier to do a like thing next 
time, a habit which will work ultimate ruin. 
"'Sharp practice" has made many an able man a 
pauper. 

The failure to observe the Golden Rule more 
universally and more strictly is because of the 
desire for quick returns by dangerous methods — 
the "' get-rich-quick " fever with which too many 
are possessed. We daily encounter men whose 
lives, whose success, and whose reputations have 
been ruined because, in the beginning, the profit 
of a single unsavory deal appeared to them of 
more importance than the observation of a right 
principle. Thus on the downward path they 
started, and each step became easier until conserv- 
ative men no longer care to have dealings with 
them. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Authority 

The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all there- 
fore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. 

Shortly after Lincoln, a comparatively un- 
known man from the West, assumed his duties as 
President, an important matter came before his 
Cabinet. He listened respectfully to the opinions 
which his advisers expressed with an evident be- 
lief that his action would be guided thereby, but 
when all had finished he said, "Gentlemen, I am 
President/' 

Those who would counsel disregard of properly 
established authority in government or in business 
find no basis for their doctrine in the words of 
Christ. He made it very clear that to proper 
authority respect and obedience were due and 
should be rendered by his followers. 

Recognition of authority is essential in the con- 
duct of modern business institutions. The vast 
amount of business transacted in a great mercantile 
establishment, a great factory, or a great bank 
would be impossible without that discipline which 
is akin to the military life. Hence we find in these 

organizations a branching out of authority from 

109 



no The Life That Now Is 

the executive head to the heads of the branches 
into which the business naturally divides itself, and 
from these to the heads of departments, and so 
on down the line, each leader being invested with 
power to direct the work of those under his con- 
trol, and in turn reporting to his next superior 
officer. The whole organism must work very like 
a great machine, and depends for its efficiency 
upon the willing obedience of each individual who 
constitutes some wheel or cog in the great mechan- 
ism. Obedience to authority should be rendered 
cheerfully. 

There are many workers who feel that they are 
not accomplishing as much as they should, who 
recognize, or think they detect, in the methods of 
their superiors faults which hamper themselves, 
which make their duties more onerous, or which 
do not tend toward securing the best results. 
Seldom are suggestions made, except in those 
places where there is a suggestion box involving a 
distribution of premiums, but the worker rather 
becomes discontented and disloyal, spreading nox- 
ious seeds of discord among fellow employees, even 
while he preserves the outward semblance of 
obedience. 

Such half-hearted obedience is not obedience at 
all. We must put heart and soul into whatever 
we do. We must remember that it is our business 



Authority hi 

to work, not only with our bodies, but with our 
whole being. Let us therefore go about our duties, 
as they may be assigned, with cheerfulness and 
alacrity. 

There is a marked difference between men as to 
the methods by which they control the effort of 
those placed under their care. Authority should 
be kindly administered. The art of handling men 
is one of the most rare accomplishments in the 
business world. To get the most work out of a 
large number of employees, to keep every man up 
to a certain standard of efl&ciency, and withal to 
preserve a spirit of loyalty and cheerfulness, is an 
undertaking the accomplishment of which stamps 
a man as a genius. 

There are, of course, the two extremes of the 
slave driver and of the man who can maintain no 
discipline. It is usually noted that the happy 
medium, the man who preserves loyalty and cheer- 
fulness among employees and at the same time 
gets the work done, is the one who makes it his 
object to rule by kindness. In this day the most 
humble man realizes that he has a certain dignity, 
and he keenly resents being treated as an animal 
which is merely expected to tread a mill so many 
hours for so much money. He appreciates being 
treated as a man, and indeed that man who has 
not this feeling is unworthy of employment. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

Leadership 

If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. 

In politics, In business, or in whatever field of 
human action his activities may be engaged, each 
man would be chief. The desire to be a leader of 
men is strong. There is only one way to gain 
leadership, and that is to learn a business from 
bottom to top, and then start at the top and learn 
it down to the bottom. Perhaps this need of 
thorough knowledge has never been more clearly 
stated than by Mark Twain, when he said that a 
Mississippi River pilot of the olden time should be 
able to repeat the Bible from beginning to end, 
then say it backward, and then begin at the mid- 
dle and recite both ways at once. 

No man can hope to be a real leader in any 
industry who is not familiar with the work of 
every man therein, from the least to the greatest. 
It is a fact that there are very few men engaged 
in any business who thoroughly know the business. 

The general manager of a great public utility 
corporation was formerly a clerk. At that time 
he was sitting up nights doing the work of a lazy 



Leadership 113 

man who held a higher position and who drew a 
larger salary; he did that to learn the work of the 
next man, he succeeded him, and went right on 
to the top. 

It is doubtful if any man in any great industry 
realizes how much there is to be known about his 
business, or how fully his life may become en- 
grossed with it. One cannot hope to deserve 
leadership unless he gives days and nights to the 
thing in which he would lead. Notice that when 
the leader had no more sight than the follower the 
result was not merely an ineffectual attempt to 
reach the desired goal; it was a falling into the 
ditch, a most complete and ignominious failure. 

Rank imposes obligation, and the leader must 
not overlook the responsibility incident to his 
leadership. That the holding of high office im- 
poses obligation to the public we do not deny, but 
we are not so ready to admit that the holding of 
an important place in the business world carries 
with it an equal obligation. This responsibility is 
not alone toward the employer, though that is 
great; there is, likewise, obligation to the public 
and to those subject to our leadership. The obli- 
gation to the employer is not likely to be neglected 
by a man of sense, for he knows that the time will 
come when the employer will take a reckoning of 
his stewardship, and that he will be judged ac- 



114 The Life That Now Is 

cording to the results of his work. The obligation 
to the public is in more danger of neglect. 

We may occupy a position which seems to exalt 
us somewhat above the general public and we may 
feel that our greatness renders it unnecessary that 
we should take notice of the opinion of anyone 
less fortunate than ourselves. Yet we must re- 
member that the business which is the source of 
our revenue comes from the public, and it should 
be the fixed purpose of every leader in business to 
see that his house never has a justly dissatisfied 
customer. 

A man who had "struck it rich" in the Rocky 
Mountains went into a fashionable jeweler's shop, 
clad in the rough garb to which he had long been 
accustomed. As he looked at the various costly 
articles in the glass cases the clerks walked away 
and no attention was given the old man until he 
reached a case of trinkets over which a boy pre- 
sided — a boy who was only learning the business, 
but who had graduated in the school of politeness. 
He courted the trade of the rough customer, sold 
him a few articles of medium price, and gradually 
advanced until the invoice included the most ex- 
pensive goods in stock. During all this time the 
Westerner stuck to the polite boy and would have 
nothing to do with the leaders of the establish- 
ment. When his bill had run up to some thou- 



Leadership 115 

sands of dollars he called them around him and 
delivered a lecture which cannot be here repro- 
duced for reasons obvious to one familiar with 
diction in the far West. 

The obligation toward those we lead is woefully 
neglected. The word the Saviour uses is "lead/* 
not " drive.'' We must depend less upon the au- 
thority vested in us than upon the development of 
a larger personality, a more steadfast character, 
and that thorough knowledge of the business 
which commands respect. 

Not only does our obligation to those whom we 
lead continue during the hours of employment, but 
we must remember that the position which we hold 
makes us an example that they are sure to follow. 
If there be evil in our nature they will know it and 
they will be far more ready to follow us in the evil 
than in the good; we should therefore in all things 
be an example to those from whom we desire 
efficient following of our leadership. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

Criticism 
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! 

Some years ago the failure of one of our greatest 
financiers to consummate the most gigantic under- 
taking of his life was attributed to the fact that 
his associates dared not tell him of the fatal mis- 
takes he was making. He had become so great 
that all men spoke well of him, and none dared 
to criticise. 

The greatest blessing which a man can have is 
honest criticism. The best friend in the world is 
that one who comes to us and shows us where we 
are wrong. Of course, the criticism may not al- 
ways come from a friend, but its educational value 
is no less because poured out violently upon us. 
The impossibility of seeing our own mistakes, the 
absolute refusal to turn the eye inward and see 
our own character, is a trait of human nature 
which renders our development largely dependent 
upon external suggestion. Most of us are offended 
when our conduct is criticised, and doubly so if 
our intentions and our underlying character be 
spoken against. To see ourselves as others see us 
may be unpleasant, but this is the only means by 

ii6 



Criticism 117 

which we may learn of our faults; the only source 
of information which will enable us to become 
larger men and women. 

Josh Billings truly said, *^ Success don't konsist 
in never makin' blunders, but in not makin' the 
same one twic't/' To know our faults, and to 
conscientiously undertake their correction, may be 
considered the secret of character-building. It 
therefore behooves us to give earnest heed to criti- 
cism, to overlook the offense with which it may 
come, but to profit by it to the same extent that we 
would if it had come with kindly intent. 

There is just criticism, and there is unjust 
criticism; it is futile to attempt to please all. The 
man who is in business, especially if he hold a 
position of some importance, has many interests to 
consider, and to be a success he must carefully dis- 
criminate as to whom he will please and whose dis- 
pleasure he will risk. There can be no figure in 
life more sorry to contemplate than that man who 
endeavors to please everyone. 

In a picture book of our childhood was shown a 
man riding a donkey and a boy walking by his 
side. The first traveler they met upbraided the 
man for riding while the little boy walked, so the 
man and boy changed places. The second trav- 
eler complained of the boy's selfishness in riding 
while his father walked, so they both got on the 



ii8 The Life That Now Is 

donkey. The third traveler said they were better 
able to carry the donkey than was the little beast 
to carry them, so they lifted the donkey and pro- 
ceeded on their way until, in attempting to cross 
a footbridge, all three donkeys fell into the water. 

Human nature is so various that the man who 
attempts to please universally will be continually 
vacillating between this course and that one, and 
beating about like a rudderless ship. The man 
who makes this attempt is endeavoring to attain a 
position where all men will speak well of him, and 
that is a condition which makes failure. One 
must be strong, he must do the right, he must to 
the best of his ability serve the interests intrusted 
to him; then shall he be fearless of criticism, and 
careless of it except in so far as he may thereby 
profit. 

Another thing to remember in connection with 
criticism is that a man is never severely criticised 
until he begins to amount to something. It may 
be set down as a general rule that the man who is 
severely criticised by others is accomplishing some- 
thing in the world, and is doing something worth 
while. The very activity of such a man means a 
certain agitation of forces in the community which 
is sure to bring some persons into opposition and 
cause them to raise their voices against him. 



CHAPTER XXX 
Responsibility 

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much 
required: and to whom men have committed much, of him 
they will ask the more. 

The responsibility of man is here taught with 
that clearness and breadth characteristic of all of 
the Master's words. Our responsibility arises 
from those powers with which we have been en- 
dowed by nature, from the material riches which 
may come into our keeping, and from the places 
of honor which may be given us by fellow men. 

Few realize how greatly we are indebted to na- 
ture for the power to do and to be; few fully take 
note of the duties which are imposed by the 
natural powers with which we are endowed. We 
accept bodily strength and mental acumen as 
things which raise us above those less bountifully 
endowed, and we have pride in these natural en- 
dowments as though they were things of our own 
making. The parent glories in the fact that a 
child learns easily; the young man glories in his 
strength. How often in maturer years do we use 
those powers to oppress those who, in body or in 
mind, are weaker than ourselves, forgetting that 



120 The Life That Now Is 

these things were given us to bless mankind and 
not to curse them ! 

The man who is so fortunate as to have from 
his birth a sound body and a vigorous mind is in 
duty bound to make the most of them; not in idle- 
ness to enjoy the blessings which come to him 
almost without effort, but to strive from day to 
day to make himself a larger and a better man, 
and to develop his life on right principles, that the 
strength and vigor which he has inherited may 
bless all with whom he comes in contact. To the 
man who follows this rule great and enduring 
success is certain. There is perhaps no more 
marked example of the success attendant upon 
proper realization of the responsibility incident to 
native abilities than in the life of Theodore Roose- 
velt, whose untiring efforts to uplift humanity have 
made his name symbolic of the highest honor and 
the sturdiest manhood. 

The responsibility of riches is a matter of which 
we hear so much that it may be briefly passed, 
but not with any depreciation of its real value to 
the life of the man who would succeed. We must 
observe that the man who has attained riches, 
either by intelligent effort or by inheritance, stands 
in such position to his fellows that he becomes an 
example of life to those who covet his treasure. 
The life of a wealthy man has a very potent in- 



Responsibility 121 

fluence upon molding the character of the com- 
munity in which he Uves and the circle in which 
he moves, and more especially is this true of his 
influence upon the young, whose characters are in 
a formative stage. 

He who has gained riches has, of course, reached 
the accomplishment of that purely materialistic 
ambition which is present in all, but to him who 
seeks that high and enduring success which the 
Saviour denominates as life there is ever more to 
which he may look forward, and it is only by a 
full realization of his responsibility, and by a life 
in consonance with the duties imposed by that 
responsibility, that he can attain the higher success. 

The responsibility incident to the attainment of 
high places of honor in business, or in other fields 
of human endeavor, is perhaps the greatest of all. 
The man raised above his fellows wields an in- 
fluence so mighty that he may by a word, a look, 
or an act make or mar the character of many less 
fortunate. It therefore behooves him to be as 
wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. His 
position must never be used in even the mildest 
form of oppression. His attitude must always be 
one of justice, of firmness, and of consistent kind- 
ness. To him who thus lives it will, at the end, 
be a source of joy that he has been counted worthy, 
in this present life, to occupy a position where he 



122 The Life That Now Is 

could influence humanity toward that upbuilding 
of character which is the sum of human happiness, 
and which is the great purpose of life. 

Our responsibility is threefold : to God, to man, 
and to self. First, to God, because from him we 
have freely received the power which enables us 
to become a factor in the affairs of men. How 
many, in the hour of triumph, say with Nebuchad- 
nezzar, *^Is not this great Babylon, that I have 
built?'' It has been said that a man of me- 
diocrity may go through great trial unscathed, and 
may withstand adversity without loss of character, 
but that he is truly great who can sustain himself 
in great prosperity. The thing which balances 
men in the hour of prosperity is a remembrance of 
their dependence upon God, and a realization of 
the responsibility which arises from their obliga- 
tion to him. This will preserve in the prosperous 
man that character which stamps him as a level- 
headed man whom success does not bring to folly. 

Second, there is the responsibility to man; and it 
would almost seem, in the teaching of our Saviour, 
that the duties incident to this responsibility exceed 
those incident to our responsibility to God himself. 
The duty of man to his fellows is strongly em- 
phasized throughout all his teachings. We must 
not only be an example to our associates, but we 
must actually reach out the hand to lift the fallen 



Responsibility 123 

and to heal those that are bruised. There can be 
no more satisfactory success in this life than the 
realization that we have been the means of mold- 
ing in men characters which bring them to appre- 
ciate and to practice those high principles of life 
which make for universal success and happiness. 

Third, there is responsibility to self. That every 
man is the arbiter of his own fortune is proverbial, 
and yet how we fail to take that truth home and to 
realize that we are what we will that we shall be ! 
How often we dissipate our powers, if not our 
fortunes, in riotous living! How often we weaken 
our powers of body and of mind by failing to con- 
trol anger and hatred ! How often we fail to have 
within a master who rules by principles of right 
living! How often, indeed, we lessen our success 
and shorten our lives by neglect to cultivate our 
minds and to strengthen our bodies! The great 
men of this world have given great attention to 
self-development; to development of body, of 
mind, and of soul; to filling out the man in every 
part of his complex being. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
Wages 

The workman is worthy of his meat. 

The laborer is worthy of his hire. 

How much then is a man better than a sheep? 

The adjustment of wages, or the basis of com- 
pensation for labor performed, has ever been a 
matter of contention; it is so to-day, and perhaps 
it will be to the end of time. 

Mr. Edward Bellamy, in his Looking Back- 
ward, a book which attained such wide circulation, 
held that equal effort deserved equal compensa- 
tion; that the hare, for his fast running, was en- 
titled to no greater pay than the tortoise, who 
made such progress as he was able. This con- 
clusion is, of course, drawn from the employee's 
viewpoint, and has doubtless been carried beyond 
Mr. Bellamy's contemplation in the rules of certain 
trades unions by which an equal wage is demanded 
for all journeymen, irrespective of the fact that one 
may put real effort into the work of the day while 
another works half-heartedly, merely putting in 
time and doing no more than is necessary to es- 
cape the condemnation of the foreman or super- 
vising engineer. 

124 



Wages 125 

Does not the marked injustice of such a method 
of compensation appear when we consider that the 
reason one is more expert at his work than another 
may result, and usually does, either from the fact 
of longer experience or from the fact that one has 
devoted himself to perfection in his line of work 
with that industry which has kept his mind, if not 
his body, employed in the solution of its prob- 
lems many hours which the other has spent in 
idleness or in revelry ? Does not the fact that one 
accomplishes more than another result, at least in 
part, from the fact that right living has made his 
eye more clear and his nerve more steady ? Do 
not the months and years of patient and persever- 
ing effort toward perfection entitle him to remuner- 
ation in proportion to the results which the per- 
fection so acquired enables him to accomplish ? 

From the employer's point of view piecework is 
the only solution of the problem which will give a 
just and equitable return for the money paid to 
labor. The evils of the piecework system are 
manifest in the degradation of workers to sweat- 
shop slaves. 

It is a great problem, affecting the vitals of our 
social system, and what may be its final solution 
no man may yet say. The spirit of mutual in- 
terest is, however, already evidenced by the in- 
troduction in many shops of a more or l^ss modb 



126 The Life That Now Is 

fied ''bonus'" system, being usually in the nature 
of a percentage on daily or weekly output in ex- 
cess of average production before the introduction 
of ''bonus/' The advantage to active and indus- 
trious workers is obvious, while the additional 
profit to manufacturers having expensive machines 
in service is very considerable. 

In other spheres of activity the division which 
corresponds to wages and piecework is denomi- 
nated salary and commission. The evils attendant 
upon compensation by salary are not to be com- 
pared with those of an equal wage, because salaries 
cover a very wide range, and are commonly a 
matter of agreement between employer and em- 
ployee. Compensation by commission seems, in 
every case where the results of a man's work are 
traceable directly to him, to be eminently fair, 
but it has been noticed that where universally 
employed the employer suffers more than the em- 
ployee, because the energies of a man working 
solely on commission are not directed toward the 
broad Interests of the business, but only toward 
accomplishing from day to day those particular 
things for which he Is credited with a commission. 

In modern business It Is well understood that 
wages Include something more than the payment 
of so many dollars and cents. They Include not 
only the payment of a certain amount of money 



Wages 127 

determined by a careful consideration of the exist- 
ing ratio between monetary units and the cost of 
living — the rendering, in exchange for labor, of a 
definite purchasing power in the markets where the 
necessities of life are on sale — but also those sur- 
roundings which tend toward the building up from 
the ranks of employees of true men and women 
who shall be able to act well their part in life's 
affairs. 

The success attendant upon the businesslike 
methods — philanthropy is not the word — of the 
Krupps in Germany and of certain firms in our 
own country has prompted others to go and do 
likewise, and so it comes about that great employers 
of armies of men have established various means of 
education, refinement, and comfort for employees. 
So it comes about that the great office building has 
its lunch room where, at actual cost or less, whole- 
some food keeps the workers from the lunch coun- 
ter of the "buffet''; the model factory has its gym- 
nasium and its baths; the factory town has its 
park, its library, its nursery, and its places of 
wholesome amusement. 

It is a noteworthy fact that those great-hearted 
employers who have instituted these methods of 
building the character of their employees, who 
have realized something of the responsibility of 
their wealth and their position, secure a much 



128 The Life That Now Is 

greater and more uniform efficiency from laborers 
than could otherwise be obtained, and that service 
is rendered them with such loyalty and cheerful- 
ness that labor troubles and strikes are to them 
unknown. They have appreciated the words of 
the Master, '' How much then is a man better than 
a sheep ?'^ and, appreciating the truth indicated by 
this question, they have forgotten that they are 
paying so much money for so many hours of effort; 
they have thought of their workers otherwise than 
as human machines grinding for profit; they have 
eliminated those conditions of factory life which 
fixed a definite limit to the life of the worker; they 
have introduced modern means of ventilation and 
sanitation to ameliorate the hard conditions pre- 
vailing in the manufactories of the past generation; 
and they have lifted their employees to that place 
where they become coworkers in a common cause, 
having the welfare of the common business at 
heart, and achieving results otherwise impossible. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Pessimism 

Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? 

One thing which the business man must con- 
sider as importantly affecting his career is his 
own state of mind. Every successful business 
man recognizes, as one of his greatest tasks, the 
preservation of an even disposition under trying 
circumstances, and the maintenance of that tran- 
quillity of soul which will enable him at all times 
to throw into the work in hand the very essence of 
his life. It is therefore with great reason that 
everyone who aspires to success in the marts of 
trade may put to himself the question which Jesus 
addressed to his adversaries: ^^ Wherefore think ye 
evil in your hearts V' 

Why, indeed, should a man think evil ? No 
valid reason can be assigned for harboring in the 
mind thoughts which are out of harmony with 
God's created universe, thoughts which are out of 
harmony with mankind, thoughts which are out of 
harmony with the business which demands all that 
is best in one, thoughts which one knows to be 
out of harmony with his own highest success. 

And yet man will persist in cherishing such 

129 



130 The Life That Now Is 

thoughts. The instinct of the wounded wild beast 
prompts the biting away of a putrid sore, so that 
nature may have a healthy wound to heal; but 
man cherishes the festering evil thought until the 
virus permeates his system and poisons his life. 

It is one of the peculiarities of human nature 
that there is a certain unreasoning joy in causing 
ourselves and others suffering by harboring evil 
thoughts. In doing this we rob ourselves of the 
benefit of the best industry of which our own 
talents render us capable, we poison the lives of 
those surrounding us, we render half-hearted serv- 
ice to the business in which we are employed, and 
we maintain a sensation of jarring and discord 
between ourselves and every other thing of creation. 

We must not suppose that these evil thoughts 
are kept secreted in our own heart, and that they 
are not evident to others. As a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he; and the character which is 
molded by the predominating thought of a man is 
evidenced by his every action. Not only so, but 
from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh, 
and therefore the words of a man, the tones with 
which those words are uttered, and the expression 
accompanying that utterance, will unalterably dis- 
play the condition of the heart. 

There is a marked difference between seeing the 
evils of life through complaining glasses or through 



Pessimism 131 

corrective glasses. A superficial reader of the cele- 
brated Poor Richard's Almanac might easily char- 
acterize Benjamin Franklin as a pessimist because 
of his caustic delineation of the abuses of his time; 
and yet he was by no means so. He was rather a 
mighty philosopher who saw the inconsistencies of 
man only that he might show a better and a more 
perfect way. 

Those with whom we associate form their own 
opinion of us, according to the view of life which 
they recognize that we take; and we shall find 
that, in every walk of life, we shall be treated in 
accordance with the estimate which we ourselves 
have placed upon mankind. 

Have you never encountered in business that 
happy, sunshiny man whose words are always kind 
and whose tones are always gentle; whose every 
act shows that he looks out upon the world as a 
good place, full of good people, and holding out 
great opportunities } Have you noted how each 
one will go out of his way to trade at this man's 
store, and how each one is ready and anxious to do 
him a service ? 

Pessimism reduces profits. But beyond this 
there is the influence on the life of self; there is 
the warped view which always anticipates evil, 
even though it come not; the sour view of life 
which takes the pleasure out of eflTort, and robs 



132 The Life That Now Is 

man of the joy of living, while it keeps him in a 
state of mind antagonistic to success. 

While noting the faults of the confirmed pessi- 
mist, let us not overlook the fact that there is a 
little streak of pessimism in each one of us, and 
if it be not counteracted and overcome by good 
thoughts it will grow until it becomes a rank weed 
in our garden, choking out the cheerful plants 
whose fruit is success. Each time we allow an 
evil thought to be cherished and nurtured ever so 
slightly we plant a noxious habit in the garden of 
character which is more difficult to remove the 
longer it may be cultivated. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

Selfishness 

Whosoever will save his life shall lose it. 

Someone has said that no great success is 
achieved in any undertaking in v^hich the ambition 
does not primarily spring from altruistic motives. 
It is hard for us to believe this, because men are 
not in the habit of pinning their motives on their 
coat sleeves. Indeed, it is difficult to determine 
the real underlying motive of a man, the power 
which urges him on to ultimate success in any 
field of endeavor. In the rush of business and the 
strife of competition it seems to us that each man 
works solely from self-interest. We see little but 
the results of his work from day to day, and we 
have no comprehension of the great motive which 
may lie far behind the beginning of his industry. 
Sometimes, in the fortune amassed by the contin- 
uous labor of a lifetime, we see no evidence of 
thought except for self, and yet when the last will 
and testament is read we observe that the thought 
of the life was the betterment of mankind. 

Perhaps there are few lives which appear to the 

casual observer less unselfish than that of Cecil 

Rhodes, who went to the Cape a weakly youth 

133 



134 The Life That Now Is 

and came home the ruler of a continent. Yet why 
did he, in 1891, give fifty thousand to the Irish 
home rule fund ? Why did he, when adding to 
the dominion of the crown greater territory in a 
month than British arms had acquired in a cen- 
tury, loyally hold all in subjection to the mother 
country ? Why did he, at his own charges, equip 
and maintain an army to save Kimberley from the 
besiegers ? Ask any one of those young men who 
are to-day being educated by the provisions of his 
bequests if Cecil Rhodes was a selfish man, and 
you will learn that his traducers saw only the 
shadow of the real man. 

"Business is business" is a phrase which has 
misled many, and which has too often been used 
to justify acts of selfishness. This is due to our 
narrow conception of what the business of the 
world is. We assume that business means the 
mere piling up of coin, while to the broad-minded 
it means something much greater, and something 
much happier. 

Business, in its broadest sense, involves that 
development of the world's resources which renders 
all life more comfortable; commerce involves that 
interchange of commodities between individuals, 
communities, states, and nations which gives to 
each the things of which he stands in greatest 
need; and the just remuneration of each factor in 



Selfishness 135 

the development and distribution of the world's 
goods is measured by the service which he has 
rendered to his fellow men. 

He who continually thinks only of himself and 
of his own self-interest will utterly fail to reap the 
higher benefits of his labors, and in his self-cen- 
tered attention he will overlook the greatest op- 
portunities for real success. No great achievement 
which has brought a man into a position of honor, 
or into a position in which his name has been 
blessed by a succeeding generation, has been ac- 
complished except by throwing his life into the 
work with a zeal which clearly evidenced that he 
considered the work larger, and of more conse- 
quence, than his own physical existence. It is to 
those men who regard their own lives of small 
consequence in comparison to the completion of 
the work whereunto they have been called that 
success comes in large measure, because their un- 
selfishness enables them to so thoroughly abandon 
themselves to the work that their very soul and 
life goes out in an effort to reach the goal. To 
those men does the world justly render praise, as 
unto a hero who has sacrificed life in saving his 
brother. 

It is with very clear insight into human nature, 
and into those unchangeable laws which work for 
success or failure in the affairs of men, that the 



136 The Life That Now Is 

Saviour left us these words, "Whosoever will save 
his life shall lose it/^ Whosoever will regard his 
own well-being as of greater importance than the 
greatest good to the greatest number, whosoever 
will hold his own ease above the furtherance of 
the business projects to which he owes allegiance, 
whosoever will live selfishly, shall lose that larger 
life which Christ came to give more abundantly. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

Personal Prejudice 

And he was angry, and would not go in. 
A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, 
and in his own house. 

The parable of the prodigal son clearly shows 
the neglect of opportunity because of personal 
prejudice. The elder son who had many years 
served his father, neither at any time transgressed 
his commandment, returned home to find in prog- 
ress a feast in honor of his brother who had been 
counted as one dead; so great was his displeasure 
that it is recorded of him, "He was angry, and 
would not go in.'' This elder brother had, at this 
time in his life, an opportunity to mold the charac- 
ter of his repentant younger brother, and to make 
him a man of whom the family would be proud, 
instead of one whose name had been spoken in 
whispers. But he was so prejudiced against that 
brother who, in the rashness of youth, had gone 
into a far country that he would have no inter- 
course with him, and would not go in to the feast 
which his father had prepared. 

Another instance of opportunity neglected on 
account of personal prejudice is recorded in con- 
nection with the Saviour's preaching in the syna- 

137 



138 The Life That Now Is 

gogue in his own country. While the companions 
of his boyhood recognized the force of his teaching, 
so that they were thereby astonished, they said 
among themselves, "Is not this the carpenter's 
son ?'' And they were offended in him. What a 
fatal mistake these people made, merely from a 
human point of view! The greatest prophet of 
time, the Messiah whose words should reach to 
every land and endure to all ages, came to his own 
people and gave them the opportunity to become 
his disciples and to share with him the renown 
which was his desert; but they would have none 
of it, "And he did not many mighty works there 
because of their unbelief.'^ 

The thought of Jesus, that a prophet is not 
without honor except in his own country, is perti- 
nent to the business of our time. It is our custom 
to undervalue those with whom we daily associate. 
Too often do we fail to make promotions from 
those already in our employ, and who could fill 
the higher places more satisfactorily than the men 
whom we bring from the outside, who have no 
knowledge of our business. 

It is natural to undervalue those things which 
are within our reach, and to consider as more 
valuable those things which we must reach out 
after. Association from day to day shows us the 
faults which each one possesses, in greater or less 



Personal Prejudice 139 

degree, while the man with whom we have not 
been so associated may have much greater faults 
of which we have not learned. 

While personal prejudice is a great hindrance to 
success, it is noteworthy that it is usually ground- 
less. It ordinarily results from appearance, from 
some trivial incident, or from a lack of investiga- 
tion. We dislike a man's looks, his voice, his 
clothes, or his manner, and we forthwith say that 
we shall have nothing to do with him. We are 
unmindful of the fact that such an investigation 
as is due every man, before his character be con- 
demned, might show in him the very man we need. 

Unquestionably one of the most potent factors 
leading to the outbreak of the civil war at the 
particular time at which it occurred was personal 
prejudice against the newly elected President. Yet 
what forbearance, what long-suffering, what jus- 
tice, and how great forgiveness did he exhibit to- 
ward his enemies during the years that were given 
him to live, and how unjust were his opponents in 
judging the real motives of him who, "with malice 
toward none, with charity for all,'* dispassionately 
but safely guided this nation through its crisis! 

Misapprehension is the basis of all unjust per- 
sonal prejudice, and misapprehension is another 
name for blindness. 



CHAPTER XXXV 
Profanity 

Swear not at all. 

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but 
that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. 

In this day it would seem scarcely necessary to 
say to one versed in progressive business methods 
that the harsh manner of speech incident to the 
continuous and offensive introduction of a miscella- 
neous vocabulary of profane words does not make 
for success. And yet there are few of us who do 
not follow the example of the Jews in exercising 
some discretion as to how and when we shall 
swear, or as to what things are profane and what 
things are not so. Christ's teaching in this re- 
spect, as in all, is both sound and broad. He says : 
"Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is 
God's throne: nor by the earth; for it is his foot- 
stool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the 
great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, 
because thou canst not make one hair white or 
black. But let your communication be. Yea, yea; 
Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these com- 
eth of evil.'' 

140 



Profanity 141 

It requires many years of business experience for 
one to appreciate the meaning of the injunction, 
^' Let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay,'' 
and to acknowledge the soundness of the principle 
underlying this command. 

The man who introduces profanity into his con- 
versation not only acquires that rudeness of speech 
which repels, but he unconsciously forms a habit 
of speaking with great indefiniteness. When one 
uses profane language he never really means what 
he says. He therefore loses that sense of accuracy 
which gives to speech its value. 

The great strength of business language, oral or 
written, lies in saying exactly the thing which one 
means. Someone has said that without a study 
of law no man is able to express his thoughts with 
accuracy. This is true to that extent that the 
study of the law shows clearly the importance of 
each word, and the possibility of changing the 
entire sense of a statement by the least verbosity 
or inaccuracy in diction. The meaning of "Yea, 
yea'* is that he who would govern his speech must 
say exactly what he means, no more and no less — 
a rare accomplishment of untold value. 

Admiral Farragut entered the navy at the age of 
nine, and his associations were such that soon, to 
use his own words, he "could swear like a pirate.'' 
Noticing this his father asked him what he pur-' 



142 The Life That Now Is 

posed being when grown to manhood, and he 
promptly answered, "An admiral, sir.'' 

'^Then, sir,'' said the major, "begin now to 
learn the speech of a gentleman." 

We give the greatest attention to that which 
enters the mouth. We read in the daily press 
long articles on the evil of this food and of that 
one; we visit pure food shows, and we read adver- 
tisements of all kinds of substitutes for the foods 
upon which our grandfathers grew robust but 
which, it seems, no longer agree with the human 
organism. How little thought do we give to the 
words which issue from the mouth, which are the 
real source of defilement; the source of offense to 
our fellow men, the source of failure in business, 
the source of ruin to self! Truly the tongue is an 
unruly member, and whosoever can control it is 
master of himself and of his house. 

How many men, at the close of the day's busi- 
ness, can truly say that they have not uttered 
words in the heat of the day which had been better 
unspoken, which if repressed would have made life 
brighter for their associates and more successful 
for themselves ? O, it is so easy to regret; so hard 
to refrain from the speech which brings remorse! 

Clear, concise, and calm speech carries with it a 
sense of masterful thought which impresses the 
hearer to such an extent that our powers of per- 



Profanity 143 

suasion are increased tenfold. To the man who 
speaks thus any other form of speech is doubly 
obnoxious; to the man who speaks otherwise the 
recognition of superior power in the speaker com- 
pels his respect and obedience to a greater man. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

Contention 

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the 
way with him. 

Perhaps the most remarkable instance of a 
practical effort to obey the Saviour's injunction 
against contention is afforded by William Penn's 
policy toward the Indians. Justice and kindness 
are not the arms with which most white men have 
gone to battle with the red, and yet does it not 
stand among the miracles of history that for sev- 
enty years the pact with Penn was kept inviolate 
by his Indian neighbors ? 

Lincoln said, "No man resolved to make the 
most of himself can spare time for personal con- 
tention. Still less can he afford to take all the 
consequences, including the vitiating of his temper 
and the loss of self-control/' 

The spirit of contention is the rock upon which 
more than one business has come to ruin — con- 
tention with customers, contention between part- 
ners, contention of employer with employee, and 
contention with self. 

Contention with customers appears upon its face 
as foolish, and yet it is largely practiced by men 

J44 



Contention 145 

who should know better. When we stop to con- 
sider the mind of a purchaser we must know that 
his trade cannot be retained by the man who does 
not make trading agreeable; and, indeed, in the 
case of a single sale we must realize that conten- 
tion arouses all the antagonism of the customer's 
nature, while the easy course of persuasion pre- 
serves that harmony which results in readily clos- 
ing a transaction beneficial alike to buyer and 
seller. To convince, but not to contend, is the 
law of success. 

Contention between partners can, of course, re- 
sult only in that general disintegration of the busi- 
ness which is characteristic of the house divided 
against itself. The same comparison may reason- 
ably be made as to contention between employer 
and employee, for men are coming to more fully 
realize that community of interest which must 
obtain throughout an establishment to bring suc- 
cess in any enterprise; that harmony among all 
workers from the least to the greatest which 
enables the business to go on, perfectly balanced 
in every part. 

Contention with self is but a strife between the 
principles of right, which lead us to success, and 
the principles of evil, which lead to our downfall. 
This contention exists, to a greater or less degree, 
in the mind of every man who does not intention- 



146 The Life That Now Is 

ally choose to follow the broad road that leads to 
destruction, but the daily habits formed by con- 
sistent adherence to principles of right living will 
so overpower the principles of evil that the strife 
will cease to be a vexation, and the constant vic- 
tory of the good within us, over the evil of our 
natures, will become a source of the keenest 
pleasure and a distinct factor of success. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

Heedlessness 

They seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither 
do they understand. 

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 

Heedlessness is one of the most common 
habits of business, and it is one of the most repre- 
hensible. The habit of being heedless is no more 
necessary than the habit of being lazy. The eiFort 
to listen is much less than the effort to work; yet 
we excuse ourselves for heedlessness when we 
should not excuse ourselves for laziness. 

There is no person more universally respected 
by his associates than a good listener, and there is 
no character more rare. We have the greatest 
respect for our own opinions, and are indeed 
offended if one shall say that our words be not 
worth while, but it is seldom that we take the 
words of another to heart. 

Christ teaches hearing not merely with the ears, 
not allowing the words spoken to go in at one ear 
and out at the other, but the assimilation of all 
the facts and knowledge which we may be able to 
gather, the weighing and sifting of the experience 
of others as evidenced by their spoken and written 

147 



148 The Life That Now Is 

words, and the building of this knowledge into 
that character which makes real men. 

There is something behind the words of every 
man; there is a deeper meaning which the words 
convey to the few who are qualified to hear and to 
understand. The comprehension not only of the 
things we hear, but of the more powerful things 
which stand behind and prompt the utterance of 
words, is the needful thing. 

We are heedless not only of the words of others, 
but we are heedless of the things which we see, 
and which might be turned to our own profit. 
We are heedless of the great principles of living 
as taught by the actions of men and the forces 
of nature. In short, we do not learn the laws of 
life by cultivating the habit of close observation. 
Every day of our business career, merely because 
we are not watchful, we pass opportunities which 
might easily make for success. By observing the 
acts, the habits, and the characters of our fellows 
each day, we have an opportunity to learn great 
truths which will help us. Every morning, in the 
growth of the grass and the flowers in our garden, 
we have an opportunity to study the laws of nature, 
which are so closely associated with the life and the 
success of men. Truly this world would be a busy 
place if all were continuous and close observers. 
In the smallest wayside station, whiling away the 



Heedlessness 149 

passing hours awaiting a belated train, one who 
desires to hear and to understand need never *' kill 
time/' 

A very important proposition was presented to 
President Lincoln by a young man who talked 
fluently but superficially. After giving him a fair 
hearing Lincoln promptly asked a few searching 
questions, and, as the young man failed to answer, 
the President said, ^^ Young man, one thing I have 
learned which you have not — ^thoroughness." 

In our hearing and in our observation the great 
benefit is derived by getting at the very bottom 
of things, by reaching a true realization that all 
words, all acts, and all life have for us something 
of truth in addition to that which appears to the 
casual observer or to the listless hearer. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 
Worrying 

Thou art careful and troubled about many things. 

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, 
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your 
body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, 
and the body than raiment? 

We have seldom known a business man who 
could not truthfully be said to be careful and 
troubled about many things. We have known 
men who considered it an absolute virtue to worry 
over their business, to carry the things of business 
into their homes and into their sleeping hours. 

There are few who are able to properly distin- 
guish between thinking on the things of business 
and worrying about the things of business. Think- 
ing on these things involves careful and deliberate 
planning toward the accomplishment of desirable 
ends; worrying consists in dwelling upon the pos- 
sibility of the failure of our plans. Thinking is 
directed toward the doing of things which lie 
within our power; worrying is directed toward 
things which cannot in any manner be influenced 
by our acts. We think about those evils for 
which there is a remedy; we worry about those 
for which there is none. We worry about some 

ISO 



Worrying 151 

impending calamity until we convince ourselves it 
is sure to occur, but it does not happen; wt w^orry 
about an employee leaving something undone, and 
find that it has been given proper attention. 

A man usually worries about the wrong thing 
and finds that, in the meantime, some duty which 
should have received his most careful attention has 
been neglected because his thoughts were occupied 
by a morbid consideration of evils which did not 
befall. When worrying about one thing every- 
thing else seems to go wrong. 

Nothing so thoroughly unfits a man for that 
close attention to business which is required in 
these days of keen competition as the habit of 
worrying. It draws the mind away from the 
things which are to the things which have been, 
or to the things which he fears may be. 

It is our duty, and it is essential to our success, 
to give our whole thought to the solution of the 
present problems which confront us. Henry Ward 
Beecher, when asked how he could do so much 
work, said that he never did a thing but once, 
whereas most men did each thing three times: 
once in anticipation, once in performance, and 
once in retrospect. Livingstone, that great ex- 
plorer who put his trust in God and his life into 
Africa, had as his life's motto, *'Fear God and 
work hard.'" 



152 The Life That Now Is 

Work is the thing for which both body and 
mind are designed; work is the thing which brings 
health, life, and success. Worry is the rust which 
destroys both the mind and the body, and brings 
nothing to recompense for the life it has taken. 

To some the admonition of Christ to take no 
thought for food and raiment seems impractical, 
but as we recognize the larger range of man's 
duties and possibilities we find one of the great 
helps in business is to absolutely forget the de- 
mands of the body and to throw the whole essence 
of one's being into the accomplishment of the task 
in hand; this is the only way to perform work of 
quality, the only recipe for real excellence in any 
undertaking. 

*^Is not the life more than meat, and the body 
than raiment?'' Is not man superior to material 
environment ? Is not the desire to do and to be, 
the ambition to excel, something more real and 
vital, something more worthy of attention, than 
the wants of the body ? And if we observe and 
do these things, shall not our material necessities 
be supplied in great abundance ? 



CHAPTER XXXIX 
Luxury 

They which are gorgeously appareled, and live delicately, 
are in kings' courts. 

Material luxury is not conducive to business 
success. It withdraws from man the spur which 
is necessary to drive him to the goal. It draws 
his thoughts away from the things he should do, 
and the things he has power to do, and centers 
his attention upon the material benefits by which 
he is surrounded. 

The great editorials which have inspired men, 
in times of national crises, to do and to dare have 
been written upon pine tables in an upper room, 
while the gilded railing is only for that place 
where men are passing money into the coffers of 
the counting house. 

Gorgeous apparel and delicate living are for 
those who sit in the court of a king, for those who 
live upon the favor of a protector, for those whose 
independence and initiative are dwarfed in the 
service of a feudal lord; but for the man who 
would live, who would by his own effort wrest 
success from defeat, who would maintain his po- 
sition and increase his power against competition, 

153 



154 The Life That Now Is 

there are hard conditions of service which are not 
in keeping with royal robes. 

In the advice of Polonius to his son, 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy 

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy: 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man, 

we see a strong suggestion of the spirit which 
makes for success. Too showy, too gaudy, are our 
ways. Too much dress-parade ruins the lives of 
many who have a chance to be worth while. 

In working harness the man of affairs is always 
plain and simple. We have seen a great business 
man, an employer of hundreds, a man of wealth, 
culture, and achievement, come into an office at- 
tired more plainly than the clerks who met him; 
we have seen the look of surprise at the mention 
of his name. It is the man, and not his material 
environment, which makes success. 

Few indeed are there who will accept Russell 
Sage's ideas of life. Yet in his teachings there is 
the germ of truth, and, however far it was carried 
to an unreasonable extreme in the practice of his 
life, we must respect that adherence to the rules of 
his early life which he maintained when the owner 
of millions. His life appears as the result of habits 
formed from a great appreciation of the opposi- 
tion of luxury to effort. The hard road by which 
the boy attained independence molded the simple 
and austere life of the millionaire. 



CHAPTER XL 

Associates 

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes 
of thorns, or figs of thistles? 

Every tree is known by his own fruit. 

It has been said that Carnegie's success was 
due to his skill in the selection of men. In this 
day no man of might can hope to himself perform 
even a small portion of the actual work incident to 
the conduct of his business. He can do little ex- 
cept give general directions to those who in turn 
direct the laborers, and it is therefore evident that 
the success of an employer is directly attributable 
to his discrimination in the selection of those who 
have his various interests in charge. 

It is curious how little attention is given to the 
study of man, and how great attention is given to 
the study of machinery. Mankind is of para- 
mount importance. To be a good judge of human 
nature is a distinct advantage in any undertaking. 

The selection of associates by a young man 
entering the business world is of vital importance. 
It is difficult to say how far our life is molded by 
the character and habits of those whom we con- 
stantly meet. Certain it is that our wills are so 
pliant that we become largely the creatures of 

ISS 



156 The Life That Now Is 

material and personal environment. There are 
few who, in early years, have the will so strongly 
developed that they can resist that subtle influence 
thrown upon them by the character of associates. 

John B. Gough attributed the unfortunate course 
of his early life very largely to the baneful asso- 
ciations of his bindery apprenticeship; and however 
truly we may say that the power to rise or to fall 
is in the individual we cannot deny that his eleva- 
tion or degradation is accelerated and intensified by 
the example of his associates. 

*'Ye shall know them by their fruits.'' In the 
morn of life we must be content to judge men by 
their visible fruits, but as judgment becomes more 
mature we may apply the term *^ fruits'' not merely 
to the material objects of success, but more espe- 
cially to the evidences of character which appear in 
the words and in the acts of every man. By these 
fruits may we judge, and judge rightly, the tree of 
character which dwells within, which has grown 
through the years of life, and which directs every 
visible act of the man. Grapes spring not of 
thorns, and the thistle brings not forth the fruit of 
the fig tree; neither do base words and unkind acts 
come from the heart of a man whose life is devoted 
to the attainment of high success. 

We speak of the association of the home, of the 
association of men in fraternal orders, of the asso- 



Associates 157 

ciation of men in politics, but nowhere is there 
that association which so clearly shows to others 
the inmost character of a man as in the walks of 
business; and nowhere is there greater opportunity 
to the really great soul to mold the lives and 
character of those about him, and to lead them into 
the more abundant life, than in the association of 
factory, store, and office. It is here that the trials 
and the triumphs of the day give to every man an 
opportunity to show of what he is made, to show 
the strength of a character based upon principles 
of right, and developed by right living and right 
thinking. And so surely as the yeast leavens the 
whole loaf, so surely will one bright and earnest 
character, striving for the higher successes of life, 
inspire his daily business associates to follow the 
light of life. 



CHAPTER XLI 
Opportunity 

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh 
harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and 
look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. 

The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. 

Many are called, but few are chosen. 

When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 

Failure In life is usually attributable to the 
neglected opportunities of life. By neglected op- 
portunity is not meant that great one, when we 
missed the "chance of a lifetime/* but rather those 
little ones which come three hundred and sixty-five 
times in each year, when we fail to do with our 
might that which our hands find to do. 

It is the grasping of the little opportunities of 
the day which makes the great life. To be able 
to grasp these as they come we must be watchful, 
and we must be prepared. We must be thoroughly 
grounded in the knowledge of our business, in 
order that no emergency may take us unaware, 
and we must have a character which will prompt 
us to willing service. How many instances might 
be drawn, from any great business enterprise, of 
the man in a humble position who in time of need 

has shown himself so much more resourceful than 

158 



Opportunity 159 

those above him that he has been asked to step 
up higher. 

It is the small service which counts, and it is 
the small opportunity v^hich must not be over- 
looked by the man who would attain a large 
measure of success. At the request of Andrew 
Carnegie a young man was sent to show samples 
of wall paper. So well did he impress Mr. Car- 
negie that he thereafter made especial request that 
this particular clerk should attend to his orders. 
In regular course of business he called at the 
residence a number of times, until one day Mr. 
Carnegie said, "Come with me and I will make 
you a rich man.'^ He went, and it was not many 
years until he was known as a master in the steel 
business — all because he gave earnest and courte- 
ous attention to the patrons of a wall paper store. 

We look upon the fields and we say there are 
yet four months until harvest. Opportunity is 
ever far off to our view. We anticipate things 
which will occur next week, next month, or next 
year, which will give us a chance to demonstrate 
our ability. Perchance our far-off view has re- 
spect rather to distance than to time. 

Some years ago we heard Russell Conwell lec- 
ture on "Acres of Diamonds,'' his leading thought 
being the seizure of opportunities which lie at our 
feet. He told how, while traveling in the East, an 



i6o The Life That Now Is 

Arab guide gave him the story of a man who 
desired to gain wealth in the diamond fields, who 
sold his land of inheritance and journeyed thither, 
and in a few months the land which he had sold 
was found to literally consist of acres of diamonds. 
^^And,'^ said Mr. Conwell, ^'the guide gave me a 
sly look, as though he thought a certain young 
American would better be traveling closer to his 
home.^' 

The love of that which is away off is strong in 
us. There is an allurement about the mines of 
Alaska, and we long for the wealth of South 
Africa or Australia, forgetting that there are op- 
portunities hidden all about which may, for us, be 
far greater than those of which we dream. 

How pertinent is that story of our school days, 
of the farmer who called his sons about him and 
counseled them, when he should be gone, to dili- 
gently seek a great treasure which was buried on 
his land. Earnestly did they heed his advice, and 
persistently did they stick to their task until every 
foot of the soil had been turned and no buried 
treasure disclosed. Then did the wisdom of the 
father's counsel overcome the chagrin of the dis- 
appointed sons, as the elder pointed out to them 
that by their treasure-hunting they had developed 
a barren waste into a fertile field; and the earth 
was ready to give up to them the treasure which it 



Opportunity i6i 

holds for every man who tills with industry and 
wisdom. 

Not only is it the hidden possibility which lies 
near us, but there are opportunities visible to each 
one, the importance of which we do not appre- 
ciate. The opportunity for you and for me is to 
do the best we can in the work which has come 
into our hands. Howsoever humble my task may 
be, it is my duty to make myself more proficient in 
its performance than anyone else has been. That 
is the opportunity which comes to each man every 
day. 

The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. 
Indeed, where shall we find for the work of the 
world workers who are willing, who are efficient, 
and who are grounded in those great principles 
which grow that luxuriant character from which 
spring all the fruits of success ? Though many are 
called into the harvest field, and many are selected 
who are thought to possess the qualifications of 
good laborers, how many have that industry and 
perseverance which causes them to be chosen for 
the places of the successful ? 

James J. Hill, the veteran railroad builder, says 
the qualifications necessary to success are "perse- 
verance and lots of luck.'" What is luck ? Is it 
not the power to see, the quickness to grasp, and 
the strength to hold to opportunity ? 



1 62 The Life That Now Is 

In the parable of the Good Samaritan there is 
imparted a great lesson of neglected opportunity. 
The chance to be of service was plainly set before 
both the priest and the Levite, but each deliber- 
ately avoided the duty which he saw, and left the 
work of benefaction for a stranger of a despised 
people. O, how often do the children pass by on 
the other side to avoid that work which is right- 
fully theirs, leaving the stranger or the servant to 
reap the reward of industry, which is ultimate 
success ! 



CHAPTER XLII 

Counting the Cost 

For which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not 
down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient 
to finish it? 

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine 
in that land; and he began to be in want. 

When a great multitude were following the 
Saviour he turned to them and told them, in lan- 
guage so plain that his meaning could not be 
mistaken, to count the cost of a life of righteous- 
ness; even as a man about to build a tower first 
ascertains whether he has funds for its completion, 
or as a king about to make war consults whether 
his army is able to vanquish that of his adversary. 

Nothing that is worth while in life comes to us 
unless we give its equivalent value in exchange, 
and it is indeed foolish for one to start upon the 
road to high and enduring success unless he first 
sit down and weigh the prize against the effort 
necessary to attain it. It is folly to expect to 
reach the goal without running, and we must de- 
cide for ourselves whether we are able to run, and 

whether we are willing to put into our running the 

Z63 



164 The Life That Now Is 

strength and perseverance without which failure 
will be our lot. 

It is necessary that the corn of wheat should 
die in order that it may enrich the earth by bring- 
ing forth much fruit; and it is just as necessary, 
in order to attain success in any line of activity, 
that a man must be willing to put his own life 
into the work which he undertakes. A man must 
be willing to give to the object of his ambition the 
highest power of his soul, of his mind, and of his 
body; the whole strength of his being must be 
sacrificed to the attainment of the high success 
which he craves. 

The parable of the prodigal son offers a marked 
example of failure to count the cost. This young 
man took his inheritance, went into a distant land, 
and there, forsaking the principles of right living, 
he did not count the cost of the riotous life into 
which he plunged with avidity; he did not wake 
up to the cost of his course until he had spent all, 
and the famine came and he began to be in want. 

Thus in all human life there are two things 
which must ever be set over against each other: 
the end to be attained, and the cost of its attain- 
ment. The prodigal son made the mistake of 
paying too great a price for the temporary enjoy- 
ment which he found with the friends of the hour. 
Too many men of our own day consider the price 



Counting the Cost 165 

of preparation, of industry, of perseverance, and 
of right living too much to pay for the great and 
enduring success which is possible to him that 
overcometh in the business world. 



CHAPTER XLIII 
Suitability 

And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way- 
side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 

No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, 
for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the gar- 
ment, and the rent is made worse. 

In any life which would gain ultimate success it 
is not only necessary that those great principles of 
right living taught by the Saviour be observed, but 
that they be observed as to time, place, and man- 
ner, with due regard to the suitability of attendant 
circumstances. 

Ulysses S. Grant stands without a peer as a 
general guiding great armies to victory, and as a 
President reconstructing and uniting the jealous 
sections of a dismembered nation. And yet we 
saw him before the war an unknown tradesman of 
indifferent success, and we see him in later years 
stripped of his possessions by men shrewd and 
unscrupulous in the marts of trade. We have 
seen Sir Walter Scott amass a fortune by his pen 
and we have also seen the sadness of his later 
years come from his effort in lines for which he 
was not capable. 

Thus do we often find a man working in the 

z66 



Suitability 167 

wrong field, and failing to achieve the results to 
which his industry and integrity would entitle him 
in a field where his particular abilities might have 
broader scope. This lack of conformity between 
a man and his surroundings may result from 
natural traits of character, from peculiar ability 
in a given line, or from acquired experience and 
habits of thought» A man by force of will may 
adjust himself to the environment in which he is 
cast and thus overcome the untoward circum- 
stances. If, however, he be unable to do this or 
if his ability in another line be so marked that he 
is sure of greater success therein, it is better to 
seek the field for which he is so well equipped. 

It may be said that the opportunities for em- 
ployment are now so various, and the change from 
one occupation to another so easy for the people 
of the present day, that the desire to change and 
to shift about in the search for that which appears 
more promising is a source of great evil. One 
should, therefore, in the work which he finds to do 
exhaust his power of will in an eflPort to do well 
therein. 

Given, however, a man of natural ability and 
ripe experience in a particular line of eflFort, and his 
work in a diflPerent line may be likened to the 
falling of the seed by the wayside, where it takes 
no root and the fowls of the air come and devour 



i68 The Life That Now Is 

it up. Like putting a piece of new cloth, good in 
itself, into an old garment is the work of him who 
is unqualified, by his former experience, for the 
work which he is endeavoring to do. He would be 
of service in the place for which he is qualified, 
but he is blindly trying to gain success in a field 
of which he knows nothing. 

How often do we see, engaging on their own 
account in mercantile pursuits, men who have no 
knowledge either of the particular line of goods 
which they are handling, or of the general art of 
buying and selling! It seems to be a common 
thought among wage-earners that if they can save 
a few hundred or a few thousand dollars they 
will "start a store.'' To start is easy; to succeed 
against older and more experienced competitors is 
not a matter of ease, and it would seem that the 
number of failures might be materially lessened if 
those possessing this inclination would give a few 
months to the service of another in a business of 
the same line as that in which they purpose en- 
gaging, in order to gain the experience necessary 
to succeed, or perchance to ascertain that their 
own abilities do not fit them for that line of 
activity. 



CHAPTER XLIV 
Publicity 

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel. 

We may well imagine that advertising originated 
by word of mouth, by the telling of one to another 
that a certain man was fitted to do certain work, 
or that a certain person had certain goods for sale 
or exchange. With the printed page there would 
naturally arise notice of happenings which were of 
interest to the community, and such notice would 
have an influence upon the custom of this store or 
of that one. The influence thus exerted at length 
led the tradesman to desire that more direct notice 
be given to his wares, and for this he was willing 
to pay. 

If we trace the development of advertising 
through the years to the present time we shall 
find that it has become one of the most vital in- 
fluences of commerce. Scarcely any paper or 
magazine which we may read comes to us except 
by reason of the support of its advertisers, and we 
have come to believe that nothing except the mint 
can make money without some form of advertising. 

Forms of advertising are multitudinous, but may 

be generally divided into two classes : those which 

169 



170 The Life That Now Is 

are calculated to attract the attention, and those 
which are designed to effect a sale. The latter 
class IS usually employed only by mail order houses 
and is more common in the monthly magazines and 
in catalogue literature than elsewhere. The ad- 
vertising merely to attract attention is designed to 
bring customers to one's place of business, where 
the wares may be exhibited to them and sales 
effected. This is by far the more common form 
of advertising, and is exemplified in the distribu- 
tion of circulars, in placing posters upon bill- 
boards, in erecting electric signs, in window dis- 
plays, and in the daily newspapers. 

We are thoroughly familiar with these various 
methods of advertising; we have tested their re- 
spective merits; but do we realize that the basis of 
all successful publicity is quality and truth — qual- 
ity in the goods, truth in the advertising? The 
first necessity is to have for sale an article which 
will be of benefit to the consumer, and then to let 
him know about it by the most efficient means 
that can be devised. There is no place where it is 
so necessary to tell the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth. In selling goods it is fatal to tell 
less than the truth — it is fatal to tell more. False- 
hood on the one hand, and false modesty on the 
other, are twin evils to the advertiser. 

We have said in another place that the man who 



Publicity 171 

lies to sell goods is a fool; we would here say that 
the man who lies in his advertising is doubly so, 
because a prospective customer comes to him only 
as a result of that advertising, he comes to test the 
truth of that advertisement and if it be not true 
he goes forth to tell others of his discovery. The 
man who marks up his price cards and then marks 
them down again, and then advertises a bargain 
sale, cannot hope for the lasting confidence of the 
community* 

By the casual observer it is often thought that 
advertising is but a matter of warfare between rival 
concerns, and that it has no influence upon the 
general life of mankind. Not so; advertising is the 
great educator of the age. It is advertising which 
is teaching people facts pertaining to food, clothing, 
and every comfort and luxury of life. 

It has been found by actual records that the 
advertising of a given commodity by a half dozen 
competing companies produced sales many times 
in excess of the sales of the same commodity re- 
sulting from the advertising of a single corporation 
in which the others became merged. Advertising 
increases the consuming demand. 

Legitimate advertising of an article, in connec- 
tion with the name of a responsible maker, in- 
creases its value. We use the word ** value'' ad- 
visedly; we mean not merely that it increases its 



172 The Life That Now Is 

selling price, but it increases its worth to the con- 
sumer, because it insures him in secunng an 
article of the quality which he desires, and of 
which he would not know except by its extensive 
advertising. If never advertised it might be just as 
good, but the consumer, ignorant of that goodness, 
could not be profited by its excellence. 

Then there is the advertising of self, the making 
known to the world of the principles which govern 
our life; not in a spirit of boasting, not by methods 
savoring of self-praise, but merely letting our light 
so shine before men that they may recognize, from 
our words and our deeds, the character founded 
upon principles of right living. Christ said to his 
disciples, *' Neither do men light a candle, and put 
it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it 
giveth light unto all that are in the house.** So is 
it that the life and the character of one grounded 
in principles which make for high and enduring 
success shed that light upon all who come in touch 
with him; so is it that his life brightens all lives, 
and the world becomes a better, a happier, and a 
truer world because he has lived. 



CHAPTER XLV 
Economy 

Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. 

We are at once struck by the paradox of One 
who could from five barley loaves and two small 
fishes produce food sufficient for five thousand 
people directing that the fragments remaining 
after the meal be gathered, that nothing should be 
lost. And yet the Saviour was but furnishing his 
disciples with an illustration of that infinite econ- 
omy which is everywhere evident in the doings of 
nature; and nature is the handiwork of God, He 
was but giving to us an example of the economy 
which must characterize every action of life if we 
would succeed. 

In this extravagant age, when every man may 
with truth be said to live like a king, it would seem 
timely to speak of economy in the matter of money. 
And yet the subject is time-worn, and all has been 
said that need be upon this important point of 
business success. 

Attention may be for a moment directed to the 
economy of time and of energy. There are only 
so many hours in the day; how many do we 
waste ? It is needless to here recall the teaching of 



173 



174 The Life That Now Is 

childhood, important though it be, that the idle 
hour can never be regained. Rather would we 
call the attention of the busy man to the minutes 
he wastes in doing things which can be delegated 
to one whose time is of less value; to the minutes 
he takes to look for things which would be ready 
to his hand if kept in the proper place; to the time 
he takes to-day to look for the thing which he 
threw aside yesterday because he had not one 
minute to put it away, although he now spends ten 
minutes searching for it. 

It is this lack of system in our work which robs 
us of time, which renders us unable to perform a 
great amount of labor in the hours of the day, 
and keeps us working at night when we should 
be recovering our strength by healthful diversion- 
There is absolutely no limit to the amount of 
work which a man can perform in a day if he 
works systematically and keeps not only his 
thoughts, but his papers and all material things 
with which he has to deal, in perfect order. 

We must get hold of the absolutely intrinsic 
value of minutes if we would succeed. Of Glad- 
stone it is said that so careful was he of small 
fractions of time that he ever carried some little 
book with him to read in idle moments. 

Economy of energy is not of less importance, 
and is equally neglected. We take pride in our 



Economy 175 

strength, and yet we well know that we have only 
so much, and that there is a limit beyond which 
we may not pass. We well know that our facul- 
ties cannot be sustained at the high pitch of in- 
tense activity for many hours at one time. Why, 
then, do we waste our most intense exertion upon 
trivialities; why do we not save our energy, giving 
to each subject that consideration which its im- 
portance deserves, so that the weightier matters 
may receive our most active attention ? 

The masterful man is he who weighs his duties 
in the balance, disposes of the less important with 
such energy as they deserve, and throws himself 
heart and soul into the things which are worth 
while. This is economy of energy, and this wins 
success. 



CHAPTER XLVI 
Rest 

The Sabbath was made for man. 

Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a 
while. 

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest. 

From the beginning Christ knew the needs of 
humanity, and his statement that the Sabbath was 
made for man shows that he well understood the 
necessity of man for that alternation of activity 
and rest which can alone preserve unimpaired the 
vitality of his powers. 

There are those who deny the sacredness of the 
Sabbath and who, disregarding the laws of nature, 
pursue their greed of gold on that day as well as 
upon those six on which we are commanded to 
labor and do all our work. Eliminating any re- 
ligious consideration, can they be said to be wise 
who thus violate the laws of their own being by 
that restless and changeless work for which neither 
the body nor the mind is designed ? 

When the apostles returned to Christ after their 
tour of preaching he said to them, ^'Come ye your- 
selves apart into a desert place, and rest a while,*' 

17^ 



Rest 177 

here again recognizing the necessity and the im- 
portance of respite from arduous work. 

There is inaction which is not rest, and there is 
rest which is not idleness During one of the in- 
tensely earnest fights in which James A. Garfield 
was engaged while a member of Congress he 
suddenly disappeared. Some of his colleagues be- 
came worried about him and instituted a sys- 
tematic search for the man they so sorely needed 
in the closing debate. Great indeed was their 
surprise, when they finally located him, to find 
him earnestly studying Latin poetry, while around 
him were many copies of Horace. He had secured 
every edition of the Latin poet contained in the 
Congressional Library, and was working as ear- 
nestly as an undergraduate preparing for an exam- 
ination. To the anxious inquiries of his friends he 
merely answered, "" I had to get away or go crazy." 

The Sabbath was instituted as a day of higher 
thoughts, a day on which the attention might be 
lifted to those greater things which are not of this 
world, a day devoted to Him who on that day 
rested from all his work which God created and 
made. God's visiting day! 

The thought therefore comes to us that the 
times of rest in our lives should be given to those 
thoughts and aspirations which are higher than 
the daily work in which we are engaged. The 



178 The Life That Now Is 

change thus offered from the daily routine of 
mental or physical toil not only permits those 
parts of our physical organism which are ex- 
hausted to recover normal strength and vigor, but 
by the turning of our attention toward things 
which are above and beyond the daily round of 
care and anxiety our entire nature is ennobled, 
and we are enabled to resume the duties of life 
with a clearer eye, a stronger arm, and a steadier 
nerve, with an increased purpose to do and to be, 
with greater faith in humanity, and with a larger 
hold upon the Infinite. 



In closing this application of the words of our 
Saviour to the principles underlying success in 
business, we desire to call the reader's attention to 
Christ's invitation to the workers of every nation, 
of all time, and of every station in life: **Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest/' Jesus recognized that 
the world was heavy laden, more heavily laden 
than need be if men would only accept the prin- 
ciples of right and grant unto others their just due; 
he appreciated that the world was in need of rest, 
and to the great heart of the Infinite Creator of the 
universe, to the mercy of the Father who cares for 
the least, he invites the worker to come with faith 
and love, and he will give him rest. 



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